


Crash and Burn

by snofeey



Series: Crashing Down [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Lance isn't always an ass, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team Bonding, emotions and freakout, post Season 1 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-24 07:58:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7500312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snofeey/pseuds/snofeey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fallout of attacking Zarkon and rescuing Allura has them spread out across the universe, stretched far, gone. Shiro searches, while Keith tries to survive, and both try to hang on to what once kept them standing. But it's hard, when the world has fallen out, again, and you're aiming to crash into the ground and the pitch black pit of panic.<br/>Ch. 2: They're all together again, but that fall that started when the Galra attacked at Kerberos keeps going. Tempers are short, words hurt. But even as they're sure that it's done, finished, Shiro and Keith cling to one hope. That it can't end like this.</p><p>--<br/>Follows 'Falling'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crash

**Author's Note:**

> So this is all going to go out the window with season 2, but they threw us off a cliff and I don't care.

\---

_Crash…_

\---

The first thing he notices is that he feels like he’s stretched out, arms and legs reaching impossibly far, feeling the extremities only distantly. Black rumbles uneasily and he corrects himself; he only feels one arm. The left arm.

The right is missing.

Shiro starts shaking, and it’s all he can do to aim Black for the nearest planet, processing the read-outs absently as he aims for an unpopulated, remote area. He doesn’t know who lives on this planet, nor does he care.

 _Do you know the difference between dead and disappeared?_ Keith’s dull voice echoes back, taunting. Voltron’s right arm is missing. His right arm, one and the same in the end.

Black lands, nose hitting the ground before his back legs fold and Shiro is stumbling out, falling to the ground and yanking off his helmet. It hits the ground several feet away as he collapses, knees hitting the ground as tremors wrack his body, ripping control from him. There’s no one to hear, no one to care, no one to see, and he lets the ragged sobs loose, allows his throat to catch and whimper. The world shrinks to the black fear that takes over, and he falls back off his knees, drawing them close and seeking to fall into himself, hide from the reality of what had just happened.

 _I need to get something back_ , he had told Keith, and Keith had understood and said ok. But Zarkon had taken it all.

His right arm is missing.

He doesn’t know how long he sat there, curled around himself, when he finally comes out of the trembling fit. Long enough that he feels stiff and his legs tingle with restored blood flow as he eases them out of their cramped position. He feels raw, shattered. Humpty dumpty comes to mind, the children’s rhyme echoing inanely in his head, and he cuts off the nervous laughter that the rhyme sets off, barely.

_But all the king’s horses and all the king’s men…_

Shiro exhales shakily, tries to push the rhyme and its ominous meaning out of his head. But like pink elephants, it just _won’t go away_. Tears leak from his eyes, and he falls forward, stiff knees falling under him as he leans his forearms against the ground, cradling his head against his arm. His only arm, his actual arm. Not the metal monstrosity that mocks him, reminds him that he had been the plaything of the Galra and a witch who saw living things as fodder for her experiments. That reminds him he is broken.

 _I am not broken_ , he protests silently, repeating the words over and over but they feel hollow, insubstantial in the face of the evidence that is his bastardized arm.

_…couldn’t put Humpty back together again._

Something shifts behind him, but he doesn’t look. Doesn’t care enough to look. He remains where he is, silent tears falling onto the dry earth, breathing ragged and labored.

When he finally regains control, the sun is setting. On this world, dusk looks much as the desert sky outside of Garrison did, only stained with deeper purples and less of the burning reds. Shiro stares at it dispassionately, too drained to respond to the ache that the sight raises, a dull thud to knock against the pain in his side that throbs to its own beat. It is only when the cold breeze that beckons nightfall blows by, causing him to shiver, does he move, turning to look around him.

The first thing that he notices is that Black has curled around him, the great Lion pressed to the ground and arced so that his head lays watching over Shiro. As Shiro stares, shocked, at Black, something inside him falls down and suddenly he feels Black. Feels the hurt, the confusion, concern; understands the Lion’s own loss.

Trembling slightly, Shiro reaches out and places his hand against Black’s nose.

“He hurt you too, didn’t he?” he whispers, voice rough. “He took away your trust.”

And then Shiro can feel the Lion’s relief, that someone understands, and it’s all he can do not to lose himself in the acceptance that suddenly radiates out. He shifts, moves so that he’s leaning against Black and tips his head back. He hears the hum of the particle barrier go up, relaxes in the knowledge that Black is protecting him, them both, and he starts to talk. He doesn’t make sense, the words coming out in no logical fashion and there’s no order to his sentences. But it doesn’t matter; Black doesn’t care, it’s ok all the same.

 _Just talk to me, ok? Or anyone, really._ That’s what Keith had said, and he had pretended to promise that he would. Later is better than never, his mother had always said ruefully; Shiro hoped that this would be one of those times.

Disappeared is _not_ dead. He had to believe that. Needed to. Otherwise, he didn’t know what would happen.

\---

When Shiro had caught him and Red, Keith allowed himself to relax a little, turning his attention to getting something of Red’s systems back on line. Preferably the coms. But then the wormhole disintegrated on them, and the next thing Keith knew, he watched the other three Lions pulled from the conduit, exiting at random points before he too felt himself yanked from Black.

He entered a system he didn’t know in a Lion that was flying dead, drawn into the gravitational force of the small planet circling a yellow star. The descent into the planet’s atmosphere pulled every which way, hammering at the already battered body of the Red Lion. Keith pulled frantically at the control handles, called to Red, tried everything he could to get the Lion to respond. The ground kept getting closer, and a cold hand reached to clench at his heart, his gut, and he felt himself stiffen.

“No!” he screamed against the fear, reaching out somehow to that familiar-yet-unfamiliar feeling that was Red, refusing to give up, refusing to let the cold fear win. He reached and reached and found the spark that fired the Lion and shared his own restless fury with it, his refusal to give up, to give in. _Willed_ Red to fly again. And the Lion roared in defiance of gravity, jets firing weakly, but firing all the same, and between the two of them, Keith and Red managed to stave off a crash that would have killed them both. They still crashed, but the Lion’s jets had slowed the descent sufficiently and cushioned the blow enough that though they carved a furrow through the fallow land and despite the fact that Keith was thrown from his seat to slam into the ceiling and wall of the cockpit, they survived.

Keith lay on the floor of the cockpit, breathing shallowly as he registered the pain across his chest and the pounding in his head. He grinned weakly as his eyes slipped into unconsciousness; he could still feel Red, they had survived.

\---

_Zarkon stared emotionless at the dull spot of space which had once held the wormhole that Voltron and the Alteans had escaped through. A search was on for whoever had opened the barrier; he did not concern himself with it, only when the traitor was found would he turn his attention to the matter._

_It was a pity they had captured the Black Paladin, not the Red one, in the sweep through the Terran system. The Red Lion’s Paladin fought like a Galra; what a sight he would have been in the arena! How much easier he would have been to turn. And there would have been no doubt that the temperamental Lion would have accepted him, as there had been with the other human._

_Turning back towards the courtiers who waited, hangers-on, Zarkon dispelled his regret for what could have been. There was still time to gain Voltron, especially now that the Red Lion and its pilot were likely dead._

\---

When Shiro woke, a small girl was watching him through the particle barrier. Or, he thought it was a girl. The child had long hair, bound in fabric and braids; her face the colour of dark adobe dust, her hair the burgundy stain of the sunset from the night before. She smiled when she saw him looking at her.

“Lion-man,” she giggled, her voice high and her dark eyes with their lack of whites bright and joyful. Shiro smiled weakly, still feeling raw from his break-down and the hours of babbling to Black. The giant lion remained in the position he had found it the previous day, relaxed but watchful.

“Lion-man eat?” the child asked, cocking her head as a cascade of hair braids fell over her layers of clothing. Shiro shivered in the chill of morning and then nodded, standing shakily. His head throbbed and his side felt like it was on fire. He dimly remembered fighting Hagar; his mind shied away from it, but the pain from her claws refused to let up and allow him to exile the memory as he had with so much else.

“You think this’ll be ok?” he asked Black softly, resting his arm on the metal muzzle. The particle barrier came down, and Shiro’s lips quirked; there was his answer. The alien child turned as soon as she saw Shiro move towards her, skipping ahead, stopping occasionally to make sure her charge still followed.

She led him to a wide-mouthed cave, where more aliens with dusky-red skin and hair of deep burgundies, maroons, and even indigo moved, some young and what he assumed was middle-aged; far more moved with the stiffness of age. He tried not to flinch when a wizened old one, bent at the middle, looked over at him. He could only hope that the alien wouldn’t take offence at his behaviour.

They fed him and gave him water, hospitality in the strange desert land. When the high noon came, they ushered him into the cool of the deep cavern. His side protested loud enough then that he had to acknowledge it, the fight, the loss… Pale, he asked for dressings, and the aliens, the Setsi they called themselves, looked concerned, sat him down. “Lucky no poison lingers,” one said, shaking her old head. “Druid magic here,” another hissed, packing a stinging salve the wound before he gave Shiro a vile liquid to force down. As the medicine took effect, Shiro felt himself falling asleep, the heavy, lingering drowse he remembered from his stint in the hospital on Earth, from when his tonsils were removed. He tried to protest, to insist that he could not afford the time, because someone needed him, but the drug proved more potent than his will (and what wasn’t these days?), and the last thing he remembered was tipping his head back and falling asleep.

 When he woke (after how long?), most of the aliens were gone. The cave was cool, cold, and a blanket had been thrown over him. The two old aliens who had tended him stood watch nearby, the old female the one who had originally reminded him of Hagar, but whose eyes held none of the witch’s cruelty.

“I am Rae’tna, Old One of the Setsi.” She said softly, upon seeing him wake. “And this is Syg, Old One as well.”

“My name is Shiro,” he said, remembering after a moment to introduce himself.

“And Paladin of Voltron, yes.” Rea’tna nodded, smiling sadly at his surprise. “Come, there is a tale to tell, though it is not the long noon.”

“A … tale?”

“Yes, Shiro, Paladin of the Sky,” Syg rumbled, his old face expressionless. “A tale the Galra do not  wish to be remembered, and one that may be of use to you in your search.”

“You cried out in your sleep when the Druid’s magic held you,” Rae’tna said softly, explaining. “You must find the Red Lion, yes?” Shaking slightly, Shiro nodded. How did they know so much? “Then come. We will not hold you long.”

A moment of thought, and then he stood, knees weak from whatever had struck him. The Druid’s magic, Rae’tna had said. Hagar’s? But what did that mean, ‘Druid’?  He frowned; likely not what it meant on Earth (the white robed figures from a comic book he had read as a child came to mind, but surely not that). Had Allura and Coran known about Hagar, about what a Druid was? 

\---

When Keith woke, all he could process was a dull pain throughout his body and the taste of blood, iron, in his mouth. Then he moved, and it was replaced by sharp pain in his head, across his chest, and at his shoulder junction.

Breathing shallowly, he lay still and tried to take count. _Concussion, broken collarbone,_ he blinked slowly, _and I guess ribs._ He’d had the former two before, remembered how they felt, the need to more gingerly, to stay awake. Too late for the last, he’d see if the situation allowed the first.

Red lay unresponsive around him, but Keith knew that the great Lion, while unable to move, would be ok. He also knew, somehow, that Red’s injuries were far more extensive than his. His mind started to reply the fight with Zarkon, the king’s attacks with sword and whip, the energy biting into the Red Lion’s metal exterior, the pain that lanced through and reached the dim recesses of Keith’s mind, setting his own nerves on fire. He jerked away, turning his attention to the present pain and not the reason for it.

 _Is this what Shiro’s been doing?_ He wondered bleakly, figuring it must be. How else to deal with a year of what Keith had experienced over not even an hour (or whatever the Altean equivalent was)?

Propping himself up with his good arm, Keith looked around him, attention back on the task at hand. The solid fixtures of the Altean tech meant that the cockpit was relatively clear of debris; only one of the storage cabinets had popped open in the crash. Medical gear lay strewn about. He grinned weakly, grabbed the thick bandage that had landed near his feet.

“One bit of luck,” he mumbled, tying the bandage so that his left arm, the side of his broken collarbone, would be pinned to his side. He felt awkward, but it was better than letting the arm hang useless. When his work was down, Keith stared at the effectively dead arm. An uneasy feeling settled in his stomach, and he wondered where Shiro was, if he was okay. Shoving it down, Keith shifted to make his way to the controls and his seat. He couldn’t focus on that right now; Red needed him as much as Shiro did, and the former was closer to hand. And more likely to actually tell him what was wrong.

It wasn’t that he was angry with Shiro for being so closed mouthed; he understood the reluctance to talk, to share emotions better than most. He was frustrated though, that the man who had once trusted him, talked to him, teased _him_ about not opening up to those around him, had become withdrawn and wouldn’t let anyone, let alone Keith, help. Shiro before Kerberos had never twisted truths, never lied; after Kerberos, Keith could tell he was doing so to try and maintain what composure he had left, and he tried not to take the lies personally, no matter how _hard_ that was, tried to let Shiro have what little peace he eked out for himself. He had throttled down his anger and hurt as best he could, but, well… the hurt remained. Keith had been lied to all his life, first by adults who didn’t realise how fast a child grows up once they hear the words _I’m sorry kid, but your parents are dead_ , who didn’t understand how much that child resented being treated as if he was helpless, then by well-meaning social workers (you can only hear _it isn’t you, things just changed for them_ so many times), and the instructors at Garrison, who had their own motives, especially after Kerberos.

He frowned, thinking suddenly again of the fight with Zarkon. _How_ the king had fought, and what that meant for Voltron’s past, what they had, and had not, been told. Shaking his head, he turned back figuring out what to do, or at least tried to. His concussed head pounded a distracting rhythm, and his thoughts seemed to have their own plans at the moment.

The night he had first fought with Shiro about sleeping, he had paced the hallways on the other side of the castle, frustrated at Shiro and angry at his inability to talk calmly. Fair, he was still on edge from the ‘team bonding’ that had revealed just how inept Lance really was, but he knew he shouldn’t have snapped, not right off. Coran had found him, given him a long, uncharacteristically serious look, and then sat him down. _I don’t like talking about this_ , the man had sighed _, but I think you need to hear it._ Coran’s eyes had been distant, troubled. _Ten thousand years ago and a bit, my son was captured by the Galra with his crew. He wasn’t in their hands as long as Shiro, but the results were much the same. He withdrew on himself, started having nightmares. He couldn’t move on from whatever they did, and he wouldn’t talk about it. Heart-sickness, it was called on Altea._ Be patient, the message had been, with both of yourselves. _You’ll need someone to talk to soon,_ Coran had sighed. _Because you’ll feel a frustration that can’t be denied, or taken out on Shiro._ A lesson born of experience, Coran’s eyes told him, and Keith had winced, nodded, shrunk in on himself; vowed silently to apologize to Shiro in the morning. Coran had said if Keith ever needed to talk, all he had to do was ask. Keith hadn’t taken him up on that yet, but he appreciated the gesture, deeply. He knew how hard it had been, for Coran to trust a young man he barely knew with one of the hardest moments of his past: a dead child, one spiraling away, that no one could catch.

He didn’t talk to Coran, but he did talk about it with Red. Service tunnels linked the hangers to the castle, longer to get to but easier to access if you didn’t want the Princess or the Terrible Trio to know what you were about. While Shiro stalked the corridors, Keith curled up against Red, voicing softly his frustration, his doubts, his worries. The Lion listened as so few did, a steady, warm presence behind Keith.

It seemed like forever ago that Keith passed Red’s test. Had anyone asked the great Lion, it would have said the same about Keith’s.

\---

_Lance eyed the foreign sky around him. Blue cut through the clouds easily, though neither Lance nor his Lion felt comfortable. For the first time he could remember, he was alone. Back tense and shoulders hunched, his eyes darted side to side, silent in the cockpit. “Keith would never believe this, me, quiet!” Lance laughs nervously, trying to fill the silence with sound. But the echo only makes the loneliness more oppressive, so he shuts up for once. Alone. Five letters, two syllables. A tidal wave of pain. Alone. Then, suddenly, pressure on the back of his mind, familiar. He relaxes, laughs self-consciously at the rebuke._

_“Yeah, sorry buddy. Not alone; I’ve got you. It’s just_ so _quiet. You got some tunes wired in there that we can blast?”_

\---

Shiro followed Syg and Rae’tna, nervous, eager but not ready to hear the tale they had promised. How could it help him find Keith and Red? Why was he even here, still? Keith could be— he jerked away from the thought, refusing to acknowledge the possibility, refusing to let himself fall back into the black pit of fear. He caught Syg’s eye on him, smiled weakly; Syg only nodded in response. They travelled through a maze of twists and turns, feeling the coolness of the deep cavern rock. Then, suddenly, it started getting hotter, until a steady warmth radiated all around them, comforting and just on the good edge of ‘too hot.’

“There is a lava pit just on the other side of this room,” Syg said, his deep voice echoing in the chamber. But Shiro wasn’t listening; he was staring at the carved lions that decorated the room, that led down a dark passageway to the other side of the room and the lava pit that could have only held one Lion.

“Red… was here?” he asked, voice shaking. He had never noticed with the other carvings, but those   of the red lions radiated a steady heat that had nothing to do with the lava pit. He placed his hand on one, shaking as he realized it was his metal arm, that it was reacting, processing, noting the energy that emanated from the carving. Briefly, he felt the ghost feeling of the Red Lion, the right arm of Voltron. The missing right arm.

“Sit, Shiro of the Black Lion. We will tell the story, though it is not time, and then you might find your missing friend.” Rae’tna’s voice commanded firmly, and stunned, he sat, back pressed against the domed wall and its carvings. The ghost arm faded; he tucked his metal arm under his real arm, hating the sight of it, hiding it, wishing it could disappear as quickly as the ghost arm had.

He paled. No, never. The ghost arm could not disappear. Disappeared was gone. It had to remain, a dim map to the missing Lion and its pilot.

Rea’tna and Syg began to speak, chanting slowly and trading off with one another. They told of how the Red Lion had come to the desert planet, ten thousand years ago, and how their ancestors had found it. This cavern became the place of choosing, when the ever-changing fires that ordered their lives laid their mark on the northern Setsi; here children changed to adults, individuals to pairs. Here story-holders were born. The Red Lion watched over it all, silent and watchful. Children reported wondrous tales of the Lion rumbling in greeting, of stopping them from falling into the lava. The Setsi had made the Lion part of their lives, of their families, and all played under its shadow.

Five years ago, the Galra came. They ran over the desert planet, searching for a part of Voltron, killing those who resisted. The Setsi went underground, hiding in the caves that looped under the sandy surface and cutting off access to the scarce water that the Galra needed to remain on the surface. Eventually, though, the Galra found the cavern and its precious occupant. Moons later when the Galra ships finally left, the Setsi came back to a ransacked home, destroyed tunnels, and a gaping hole above the volcano pit that bore witness to the terrible fact that the invaders had finally found one part of Voltron.

Shiro sat with his legs tucked up, one arm hidden, one wrapped around them. He regarded the Old Ones steadily, thinking he understood the point of the story.

“Our stories go back generations,” Syg explained as the tale ended, his dark eyes serious. “Our lives are long, those who are born to hold the stories. Rae’tna and I are of the twentieth generation of Story-holders since the Lion came.”

Shiro stared, and the two Old Ones chuckled. “Yes, Paladin, that old,” Rae’tna smiled. “Now you know the story, and you can share it with your companion when you find him.” Her smile faded as she regarded Shiro.

“The stories tell us the Altean war with Zarkon was something the universe had never seen before and has never been seen since. It was brutal, and the Galra fought with the conviction of those who know no peace, know nothing of the land’s cycles and the shared origin of the stars. You have a long fight ahead of you, young Paladin.”

He nodded, tired and terrified, yet committed all the same. His mind knew that it must be so; his heart cringed and protested that it was _tired_. But he wasn’t important; one more cog in a wheel, expendable for the universe to go on. The universe that the Galra sought to control, to destroy. Fight he must.

Syg regarded him steadily. “There is a sickness that eats at the heart,” he cautioned. “You know it well, your eyes say. Know this too: the only cure for that sickness lies within you.”

Pale, Shiro nodded, trying not to shake. Syg and Rae’tna rose, beckoning for him to as well.

“You will want to leave while it is still cool, before the long noon makes it too hot for you to reach your Lion. The Black Lion is the heart of Voltron, yes?” He nodded, and Syg gestured to the nearest carving. “Then you are connected to all. Trust in the Black Lion and the connection between the five parts of Voltron.”

As he trudged back to Black, Shiro felt the confidence Syg’s words had inspired fall into the sands, to be lost for all time. What if he couldn’t find the line that connected Red to Black? What if he did, but all that it told him was what he feared?

His right arm was missing … Shiro shook his head sharply, trying to get the thought out. He couldn’t help anyone curled up in fear. He would find Keith.

_Humpty dumpty…_

\---

Keith leaned his back against the controls, trying to breathe deeply and force the dizzy spell to pass. He had manhandled the heavy metal cover off of the access point to the machinery within, and the effort had nearly caused him to pass out again.

“I … can … do this,” he hissed, eyes hard. He knew he was probably pushing himself too hard (hah, what a laugh that was, after badgering Shiro about doing that very thing), but he didn’t have much choice. Red couldn’t raise the particle barrier, the coms were down, and Keith had some rations, but little water. And he couldn’t look for it by setting off blind. One of those things needed to be fixed, and all necessitated that he open the access point.

“Ok Red,” he sighed, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. With his concussion, the lack of light helped him reach further; Red could only speak so loudly right now. “What’s next?”

The images that flashed through, pale and insubstantial in a growing proof of the Lion’s damaged state, showed an array of crystals. Keith wouldn’t be able to see them; an apologetic ‘I’ll know it when I feel it’ sense accompanied the images. Keith laughed bleakly. “No, that would be too easy. Alright, let’s see.”

His damaged arm made it difficult to reach far into the machinery, to hunt for the crystals. He settled for bracing his feet against the seat and using that leverage point to shove his arm as far as it could go. As his fingers searched, he thought, suddenly, of the vet he had seen on a school field trip, who had her arm up a cow’s rear ( _checking on the baby,_ his teacher had said, trying to calm the fit of giggles that had hit the children); he likely looked just as ridiculous.

 _Good thing Lance isn’t here_ , he told himself, _Otherwise this would_ really _be impossible_. But he didn’t mean it; just a thought to keep his mind from dwelling on the impossible situation he found himself in. Anything would be welcome, even Lance’s annoying commentary. Hell, he’d almost take Iversson at this point. Almost.

Finally he heard something clink, and Red rumbled. As Keith pulled his arm out, the particle barrier went up, though the flickering of its supposed to be steady light told Keith that it, like him and Red, wasn’t at full strength.

“Something’s better than nothing,” he whispered, catching his breath. “Now,” he eyed the controls. “Water?”

But they stubbornly refused to work. Keith sighed. He had listened to Coran’s lessons on Altean tech, and unlike Lance, he had actually paid attention. But with the wonder twins in the class, the ‘basic lessons’ quickly became advanced; Hunk commandeering the lessons on mechanics, Pidge on  technology. When there was time, Shiro and he would go over the material, try to grab Coran, but there hadn’t been much of that lately.

His injuries protested, and Keith fell back into his seat, forced to listen to them. He stared at the alien land outside, silent and watchful. He didn’t mind the silence, or the feeling of utter isolation. Or so he tried to tell himself, tried to ignore the chill that clamped at the back of his throat. He tried to think about past days, happier times. He tried to send his thoughts far away from the pain of the moment, and the realization that he would be here for a while that settled uneasily, uncomfortably, around him.

Outside, the sun was rising, staining the sky of the small planet scarlet. He stared, his throat tight and his pulse hammering against his ears. Those had been good days, those stolen moments at Garrison, when he and Shiro could just sit and watch the desert sun rise. They had a spot, off on the eastern side of the main administration building, which was one of the few buildings empty during non-working hours. They could see the desert stretch for miles there, cut by gullies and spires of rock, crumbling on their way up to the sky. Keith loved the freedom of those mornings; he could be himself then, released from the press of Garrison’s walls. Shiro had just soaked in the sky’s show, happy to be surrounded by nature after the man-made environment of Garrison and its ships. It was there that Shiro had asked if they might try being something. It was there that Keith had agreed, starting the tortuous journey to where they were now that he wouldn’t trade for the universe, no matter the pain. But it was also on one of those quiet, red-stained mornings that Shiro had told him that he was leaving for the farthest moon, Kerberos.

Shiro had left him in the calm of morning, the shuttle leaving the desert sands and a skinny cadet behind. He had promised to return, but for a year Keith had tried to move on from ‘disappeared,’ the salt in the wound of loss that was glimpses of familiar faces and memories of happier times.

He watched as the grasslands around him came alive with living creatures of all sorts that he had no name for. The sun stained the sky red, and he tried to quash the hard ice of fear, of loneliness, that the sight and the memory, the pain of the past year, had raised. He had taken some solace in the desert sky’s show at first after Shiro had been marked as ‘disappeared,’ swallowed by _piloting error_ , but that solace had dimmed all too soon, the red sky becoming saline solution, more pain to add to the ache. Out in the desert it had been easier, a little, immersed in the sands instead of watching them from afar. But the taste of abandoned lingered, coppery to join the iron of the blood in his mouth.

He had _not_ been abandoned, he told himself. This was something different; the others would come for him. He turned to Red, but the Lion was silent, it’s strength exhausted from raising the particle barrier. Keith was on his own, for now.

His body started to shake (was it shock?), and he exhaled uneasily. They would come. This would be the time that things would prove differently, would prove that sometimes, you could count on others. That’s what being part of a team was supposed to mean, wasn’t it?

The memory of _that_ day came up, unbidden, and he stiffened, pressed his eyes shut, tried to focus on the great lion, something else, anything else. But he couldn’t drive the past away, and he shook as the anger of so many years ago returned, the guilt. He had been so angry, at his parents, the police who came to tell him that they were dead. He had screamed at the funeral, begged them to get up, that he would behave if they would only come back. Death is a foreigner to children, but Keith learned his face quickly enough after that day. Adults, family friends of a sort he supposed, though none had claimed him, looked on, embarrassed, until one took him away. When the anger faded, it had been replaced by overwhelming guilt, and fear.

Keith bit his lip, exhaled uneasily. He had not been left behind. He _had not_.

\---

_Pidge hopped out of Green and looked around uneasily. She didn’t know where she was, or for that matter where the others were. She’d set up a tracking program with Green soon, but right now a heavy fog lay over the area and was playing havoc with the sensors. Gripping her bayard, she looked around nervously, feeling the weight of her small stature and single number. A lumbering crash to her left caused her to jump, turning nervously to face whatever giant approached._

_“Pidge?” Hunk’s voice cut through still air, staticky in the mess the fog played on communications._

_“Hunk!”  The Yellow Lion came into view, its huge form a comforting sight to Pidge and, she realized with a shock, the Green Lion._

_“Man, are we glad we found you!” Hunk exclaimed as he clambered out. “Thought it was just the big feller and I.”_

_Pidge grinned, then gave Hunk a look. “We?” Hunk just shrugged and nodded behind him to the giant lion, and Pidge blushed. Of course. Who else but the somehow sentient metal lion?_

\---

Shiro has another fit when he tries to reach for Red and Keith. He can’t feel anything, and it sets off all sorts of memories that he would rather remain forgotten. Of fingers probing, calls for him to release his past for inspection. Of cruel eyes inspecting, judging, cutting away at him. Black lands on a passing asteroid, curling up in a crater and waiting him out.

When he comes out of it, Shiro can’t grab the controls, and Black remains in the crater, a silent, dark spot on the mottled space rock. Grabbing hold of them again means that he’ll fail, one more time, that the ghost-arm will raise itself again, mock him for his loss: his arm, Voltron’s… the Galra tech that reminded him again and again that he would never be whole again. That he had been broken, changed, altered. Taken apart.

He tried to focus on Syg’s words, tried to turn his mind to the task at hand, but every time he reached to take the controls, the shakes started and he’d yank his hands—one flesh, one metal—back, hating himself for his weakness. Keith needed him, and all he could do was sit here, helpless, immobilized, panicked.

“I’m sorry Black,” he whispered, falling forward to cradle his head in his hands, pressing his eyes shut to keep the tears in. “You deserved so much better than this broken pilot you got.”

There. He’d said it out loud.

“Are you happy?” he suddenly hissed, feeling something shift in him, shatter. Black despair boiled up, mixed with bleak fury. “Are you happy, Zarkon?!” He was shouting now, raging against the futility of it all, against the hand that fate had dealt him. “Are you happy?!” Sobs mixed with his demands, rack his body as he tears at his throat.

Outside space continued undisturbed, unaffected by the railing of the Black Lion’s pilot and the turmoil that rocked him.

\---

He’s back in the desert; never left. Keith feels the roughness of the cheap sheets that he has in the cabin, is woken by the harsh light of morning. He has overslept, for once. An ache settles in, heavy and familiar. Shiro is gone, disappeared, likely dead.

“It was all a dream,” he whispers hoarsely, staring at the ceiling. Finding Shiro, the annoying cadets who helped, the fantastical trip to the furthest reaches of the universe where the Lions of Voltron waited for them. It had felt so _real_ … sure Shiro had been distant, confused, hurt, but he had started coming back to Keith. Funny how loss only makes you realise how much you need someone, how tightly they’re woven into your life. Tears leak from the corner of Keith’s eyes, and he raises his arms to press his hands against his eyes, push the tears away.

 _No, no, no_ , he cried silently. _Not again, that couldn’t be a dream._

And suddenly he is thrashing, trying to flee the hurt and ache that eats at him, but something is holding him in place and he can’t move his left arm. Panic sets in to complement the fear the dream set off, and Keith heaves himself, frees himself, starts falling and then sharp, sharp pain rockets through his body, radiating out from his shoulder; he can hear himself screaming, but from far away.

He wakes with a gasp, shuddering from pain, fear, and confusion. Cold sweat drips down his back, his face, and it’s all he can do to remember to breathe deeply to calm down. But the pain keeps distracting him, forces his breaths to shorten, the panic to remain.

It had felt so real, that dream that everything was a dream. The pain, the loneliness… he remembered them too well from that year when Shiro was listed as ‘disappeared.’ He cut back a sob; it wasn’t real, Shiro was back, and they were all now fighting some damn fight that they were not only woefully unprepared for, but had been kidnapped by Lance’s goddamn Lion to fight in.

Eventually he calms his breathing, slows his heart beat. He shifts, winces as another wave of pain radiates out. He had managed to throw himself out of his seat and, luck of all luck, landed on his bad shoulder. The pain drums steadily, lancing whenever he moves, even the slightest, turning the bile in his stomach and sending it up his throat. But there’s nothing for him to retch up, though his stomach tries its best; his ribs scream as his core contracts, stomach trying to void what little it has left. Shutting his eyes, he tries to push the pain down, get it under control. When it’s manageable, his eyes snap open. Planting his right hand on the floor and gritting his teeth, he pushes himself up slowly, twisting into a sitting position ever so carefully. His ribs protest as well, and his concussed head pounded its own rhythm to the pain. No one’s there to see him, but he’s pale by the time he managed to complete the shift to sitting, shaking from the pain. Closing his eyes, he leans back slowly, resting his back on the wall.

 _It hurts… so much._ He clenches his eyes shut, trying to keep in the tears and the sobs. His ribs won’t appreciate it. _Shiro, where are you?_

\---

_Allura pushed herself off the floor, looking over to check that Coran was alright as well. He looked shaken, but steady._

_“Did any of them make it through with us?” she asked, heart sinking when Coran shook his head, face worried._

_“We took a beating, Princess,” he added, checking the controls. “I don’t think we’ll be able to find them until we get this fixed.”_

_Biting her lip, she nodded, worried. “Let’s be quick about it. We don’t want to force them to protect themselves alone for too long.”_

_Coran just nodded and went to work. Allura sighed, then joined him, thankful that he hadn’t voiced what she was thinking, fearing; that the Red Lion, and possibly the Black Lion, might not be able to do so for very long._

\---

Shiro wakes exhausted, drained. He feels like a husk, empty and curled up against the wall of the Black Lion’s cockpit. His throat is on fire, his head pounds, and he feels sick.

“I can’t keep doing this,” he mumbles, head bowed, staring at his hands. They start to shake, but he forces himself to stare at them, watch, acknowledge that the metal monstrosity is _his_. His hand, his arm; a part of him, not alien, not foreign. Not anymore.

This is the hand that Keith always grabbed, whether out of old habit or to prove a point. He had never asked; tried to ignore the fact that his right arm was metal as much as possible. This was the hand that Keith had held while Shiro finally slept, that day in the common room that seemed so long ago.

His lips tighten, and he feels the resolve within him slowly, gradually solidify into something that he can use, stand on. Breathing deeply, he straightened his back, closed his eyes and started working through his past year as best he could.

 _The Galra made me fight._ Yes. _But I fought on my terms, as best I could._ That was true; he had never been cruel, never toyed with his opponents. If he killed, he killed cleanly and quickly.

 _I lost the Holts._ That hurt, it hurt hard. But it was true as well. Shiro opened his eyes and stared bleakly at the opposite wall. _They went to a work colony. They might still be alive._ The resolve hardened some more. _I will find them._

 _Hagar took my arm_. He gripped his right, his metal arm, with his left. Flesh over metal, registered how each felt, how the metal arm perceived sensory feelings slightly differently. He shivered, sighed. _This is my arm now,_ he told himself. _Mine_. He repeated it until he believed it strongly enough for the moment; he’d work on it more later.

 _Zarkon wants my Lion. He was the Black Paladin_. Black rumbled uneasily, and Shiro shared the Lion’s unsettled feeling. That would take some getting used to.

“We’ll work on it,” he heard himself promise the Lion. “I don’t know how or when, but we’ll figure out how to get a bond strong enough to keep him out, forever.” A rumble, an echoing promise; Black didn’t want Zarkon in the driver’s seat any more than Shiro did.

He still felt drained, weak from the emotional toll of the past days, but also stronger. It wouldn’t last, he knew, but the confrontation of his demons had helped.

“I’m sorry Keith,” he whispered. “I’m sorry it took you being ripped away for me to get over myself.” He laughed bleakly. “I finally talked, to Black, to myself. And I promise …” he sighed, clenched his hands. “I promise, and I mean it, I will talk to you. If you’ll still let me.” He stared, shifted his gaze to stare at the stars outside of Black’s view screen.

He was calm, steady. Sure of himself in a way that he had been pretending to be since the Princess was captured, probably even since before then. Sighing, he pushed himself up, returned to his seat. He hesitated only a moment before grabbing the controls, knowing that he couldn’t count on his composure to last long enough to indulge second thoughts. Black took off, leaving the asteroid behind as Shiro shut his eyes, searching for the dim feeling that would lead him to the Red Lion.

Blue and Yellow … felt impossibly far away, separated from one another and him. Green was also far, but near Yellow? He frowned, curiosity at how Altean tech worked perking up. Something to look into later.

He searched and searched, focusing on the task at hand, trying not to let the sharp fear resurface, He couldn’t afford to let it, not now. Maybe later.

Voltron’s right arm was missing. His. But missing wasn’t gone and it wasn’t disappeared. He narrowed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Missing could be _found_.

\---

He knows that he should get water, but all Keith feels is dull, steady pain, but from far away. He feels slightly detached from it all, floating almost.

Where his pain ends and Red’s begins, he doesn’t know, but he’s pretty sure that he pain in his legs is Red’s (he doesn’t have four legs, after all), that in his head is his. All the rest is fair game, shared between the two.

His thoughts drift back, to years that were a steady stream of loneliness, mixed with bright moments of joy, and he lets them for once. Someone had donated a copy of _Peter Pan_ to the home, one of the preferred nighttime stories that would become make-believe during the day. Keith read it over and over, a tale connecting him to his mother’s stories, wishing beyond all else that Neverland was real, that Peter Pan really did bring boys who fell out of their prams (‘strollers,’ one of the workers had explained) to Neverland. Surely being in an orphanage would count as well? If he did get taken to Neverland, Keith dreamed, he’d play all day with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. He’d be the bravest, go up to Captain Hook even. Nothing scared him anymore, nothing except being left behind, and he’d never tell anyone that. That was _his_ secret.

How wonderful a world where all you need is belief is for a child who has little else.

But Peter Pan never came, and the other boys wouldn’t let him be a Lost Boy when they played. Keith was too quiet, they said, not loud and brave enough to be a Lost Boy. He could be an Indian, or perhaps John or Michael Darling. But he didn’t want to play those parts, and so he’d take the book and retreat, escape reality in the best way he knew.

Keith shivers, suddenly cold, and the movement sends him back to reality, away from the memories of his childhood, such as it was. He peers groggily through Red’s viewscreen, notes that the daylight has been replaced by the deep violet of night. The Lion gives off a slight heat, the effect of its fiery  core, but Keith barely feels it. He hurts and he is cold.

Suddenly he wonders if he’s dying, if this is it. The thought doesn’t scare him, but he feels a stab of regret that this time, it will be him leaving Shiro. Without telling him. Keith stares blankly ahead of him. Was this how his parents had felt, or had their passing been quick, too quick for regrets and thoughts of their abandoned child? Or not abandoned, but left behind all the same. He remembers reading somewhere that the body will slowly shut down, sleep shielding the mind from the irrevocable fact that its light will dim. There’s a momentary panic at that, but he’s too tired to sustain it. He remembers reading from some guidebook that ended up in the charity books donated to the home about a man who laid himself down to die, to be lost on the ice. Had he just faded into oblivion, or had it hurt? Keith frowned, couldn’t remember if the body had ever been found, just the wooden gaff (some sort of ship’s pole, he remembered looking it up in the dictionary) that the farewell had been carved into.

The thought of death sends his fevered mind back to Peter Pan, the uncommon child who saw death and life as equal adventures. Who had been, really, his only friend until Katherine had come. And then again once a family adopted the little girl, looking for a child all smiles and curls, not one that watched the world suspiciously, unsure of its constancy. And again and again … Keith, silent and guarded, protected the new children, the small ones who came to the home frightened and unsure of life’s kindness. And they always left, adopted, fostered long-term.

He closes his eyes and sighs. Best thing would be to sleep; tomorrow he can try getting up and searching for water. He doesn’t remember, but he said the same thing the night before, when he finished the rest of his water.

 _All children, except one, grow up_. So the book had said, and Keith, just turned eight, serious, thoughtful, had agreed.

\---

_Hunk jumped as the swamp groaned, hating the feeling it gave off. Where was the solidity of the ground? Yellow lingered in the back of his mind, uneasy as well._

_Pidge seemed weirded out by the sentience shown by the Lions; Hunk had always dreamed about sentient robots, and was more excited than not that he had finally met not just one, but five. And to be honest, not the weirdest thing that had happened since he agreed to follow Lance on the ‘team bonding’ expedition that turned into snooping on Pidge, crashing Keith’s rescue of Shiro, and then the search for those weird lion carvings and Voltron that had led, one way or another, to him and Pidge being stranded on a swamp planet. That stank._

_Weirdest thing was probably the fact that he actually liked the green goo that Coran loved to serve._

_“Ok, think I’ve got it,” Pidge called, and he walked over to where she sat, hunched over her laptop (did she carry it_ everywhere? _) which was hooked up to both Lions. They had both agreed on this, though on little else for the set-up; between the two, they could reach farther than with just one Lion._

_“Alright, little buddy,” Hunk eyed the laptop. Pidge looked up, nervous but in askance at the nickname. He shrugged. Seemed to suit her. “Fire her up.”_

_Biting her lip, Pidge pressed a key, and they began to watch, hoping for a ping that would register one of the other Lions or the castle._

\---

When Shiro feels the faint pulse of fire, he has to fight the rush of relief and excitement to hang onto it. Black is already heading that way, responding to Shiro’s excitement and the need of the missing Lion. Their trajectory shows him that Red is much closer than any of the other Lions, but the dim pulse tells him that the other Lion is in trouble, and that Keith likely is too.

As Black flies, fast as he can, Shiro worries his lip, unable to do more and feeling helpless all the same.

“The first time I saw him,” he says softly, feeling the need to speak, to share, to ease the still silence that pressed in, “Keith was fighting with three other guys in weapons.” He laughed quietly, nervously. “The instructor had had enough, and let them go, free for all. Keith had them all out in under two minutes. He was fast, even then. Faster now,” he ended pensively, “just like Red.” Black rumbled, the Lion’s uneasiness mirroring Shiro’s, who couldn’t dodge the feeling that he should be able to feel more of the other Lion, reaching like this. “Actually met him a few days later, staring at the sun as it came up. He didn’t say much, not at first.”

He can feel a trembling fit lingering in the back of his mind, and he glares at it. _Not now,_ he tells himself firmly. _Later, once I’ve got Keith._ It feels ridiculous, bargaining with his broken mind, but it seems to work. He feels it recede, knows it’s still there, but is okay with that for now; hadn’t it always been lingering, ever since the Galra crystal took over and Sendak’s words set off the first fit? He just hadn’t acknowledged it, admitted it. Hell, maybe it would _always_ be there. Shiro frowns at that thought, then sighs. _Maybe it will be_ , he thinks, feeling his chest clench. But that would mean he would never be back to normal. But could he ever? His eyes glance down at his right arm, and his face hardens.

“The arm is _mine_ ,” he tells himself firmly. “If the fits are as well, if they remain, then so be it.”

Brave words, cardboard facings on a ghost town. But one day, he promises himself, he’ll come to peace with them, believe them. The Galra took enough. They weren’t taking _him_ as well.

Black roars, and Shiro blinks. A small planet orbiting a yellow star is in view, and he _knows_ , suddenly, that Keith is down there, with Red.

“Let’s go buddy,” he breathes, eyes bright. For the first time since the botched attack on Zarkon, he lets himself hope that things might be okay. At any rate, he’s going to find Keith, and _that_ will be good.

The Lion rumbles, and they’re cutting towards the planet, scanners searching for the Red Lion and its human companion. They find them, on a deserted point in the northern hemisphere; the planet appears to be occupied by a pre-technology civilization, and Shiro alternates between thanking their lucky stars that no one had noticed Keith (and attacked) and worrying that no one noticed (and helped).

Worry wins out when they land, and he can see that Red’s particle barrier flickers erratically, betraying the low power that supports it. He gets Black as close as he can, and then walks over to the barrier. He can’t see Keith, but that doesn’t mean anything; the safest place, barrier notwithstanding, would be in the cockpit.

Shiro looks up at the barrier, uncertain as to what to do. Black waits, patient, behind him. _You will have to earn the Red Lion’s respect_ , the Princess had told Keith when the assigned them all to their Lions. Keith had opened a hatch on the Galra trying to prevent him from freeing the Lion (Shiro winced at the thought, and the memory of the almost-fight they had had when Keith told him about it). There was no hatch and, thankfully, no Galra to contend with, but Shiro only needed Red to let him in, not let him fly. Feeling a little foolish, he places his hands on the barrier.

“Red,” he begins, unsure that this will even work. “Let me in. Black and I are here; we’ll protect you and Keith. I need to get to him, see if he needs help.”

Nothing changes, but he becomes aware that something is watching him, sizing him up. A shiver runs down his spine; is this how Keith had felt, under the Lion’s gaze?

“Please,” he whispers, leaning his head against the barrier as well. “I promised I would return, and I know I’ve been horrible at keeping it, but I need to know he is safe…” A ragged sigh escapes. “Please Red. He is special to me as well.”

Another moment of that hair-raising feeling of being judged, and he hears the sputtering hum that signals the falling of the barrier. Black’s immediately goes up, wide enough this time to cover both Lions. Shiro doesn’t have time to consider how that works, because he’s rushing towards Red’s cockpit, the way in exposed by the Lion’s ajar mouth.

Inside he finds Keith leaning against the control panel, face battered and left arm pinned to his side by one of the medical bandages. Shiro feels his heart fall out from under him, eases in beside Keith, hoping that his worst fears, never admitted or acknowledged until this moment, will prove false. His right hand cups Keith’s cheek, registering the faint pulse alongside Keith’s neck and the soft breath that escapes. Shiro exhales, light-headed in relief and suddenly so thankful for the heightened senses of his mechanical arm.

He smiles when Keith’s eyes flutter open. But then Keith only looks at him confused, eyes bright with fever and unfocused.

“Shiro?” he whispers roughly.

“I’m here Keith, you’re going to be okay,” he reassures hastily, but Keith still looks confused.

“You were gone,” he says, voice shaking.

Shiro tries to maintain the smile. “I’m back. Rest, you’ll be okay.” Keith stares for a moment then complies, eyes shutting. Only then does Shiro let the smile fade, let his face fall as his heart screams.

\---

Keith floats, dimly aware of someone talking to him, of warmth that spreads out to counter the chill that has set in, from where he can’t remember.

He floats, somewhere, and lets the snippets of half-forgotten songs, of memories remembered imperfectly, come and go. He feels someone, something share in the mirth of the better ones, in the annoyance at songs that just won’t get out of his head.

_“Why do you come here?” Shiro just grins, shrugs. “Maybe I like the company.” Admonishes that he isn’t like everyone else when Keith responds. Smiles in a way that makes Keith turn back to the desert, hide his blush in the dim red of the dawn sky._

There’s a place deep inside, where the precious memories hide.

_“Keith,” Shiro’s voice is soft._

_“What about you, what will happen if we’re found out?” But Shiro only shakes his head, eyes fierce and sure. “I don’t care about that. I care about you.”_

_And that’s all that matters, isn’t it? He remembers what Nan had said about family, about finding those you love. Besides, he feels the same._

_“Then yes,” and he’s angling up because he’s impatient and stupid and just once he’d like to get one on Shiro. Their first kiss would be his fault, for better or worse._

The older, the deeper.

_He holds onto two hands, one larger than the other, rough, and they hold him tight. Every few steps they pull him up, swing him. They laugh, he and his parents._

_The sun beats hot, comforting, a blanket to envelop and carry him home. His skin pricks at its touch, chilled when the spring breeze rushes up. Dust motes dance in the sunbeams; his mother smiles, points, tells him of fairies from Neverland that sometimes come to play in the sunbeams as they search for lost children._

_His father laughs, ruffles his hair, smiles, and Keith is free and safe and whole._

Somewhere in between Red and himself, Keith floats. He had reached and reached until he could fire the Red Lion’s fading spark that would see them land as best they could. Now Red stretched all around, pulling him repeatedly from the dark abyss that promised an end to hurt and the cold. He hangs on as best he can, not quite ready to fall all the way in.

\---

_Coran breathes in relief as Pidge and Hunk leave the hangers, in one piece. They’ve already picked up Lance; three of the five. Unfortunately, the three who suffered the least damage of the five. But that’s how the universe worked, he figured ruefully._

_“I’ve got the Black Lion!” he hears Allura exclaim, and they all rush over, the Paladins’ faces a mixture of relief and worry. “Hold on!” The wormhole opens, and they’re through, arriving at a small planet, a single orb revolving around its yellow star._

_“Shiro?” she calls, trying to connect through. Static responds, and then Shiro’s on the other end._

_“Keith’s with me,” they hear, and Coran feels the tension leaving his body, only to ratchet back up with the Black Paladin’s next words, “And he needs medical attention_ now _. Red’s down as well.”_

_The connection cuts, and Allura aims the ship for the coordinates now showing an operational Black Lion and the dull figure of the Red Lion. They’re all silent, tense, until Pidge breaks the silence._

_“Guys…” she pauses, pensive. “Is there… anything between Shiro and Keith? It’s just, I dunno. Shiro sounded different.”_

_He keeps silent; it’s not his secret to tell. Allura purses her lips, Hunk shrugs._

_“There were rumours, back at Garrison,” Lance said quietly, eyes locked on the screen. “Never paid them much attention; Mullet-man always looked like he’d rather watch paint dry than spend time with anyone. Then, well, they faded away. Y’know.” Pidge and Hunk wince, nod. Kerberos._

_“Well,” he steps in, halting the discussion as best he can. “Either way, let’s get there and get out, before Zarkon finds us a Lion short. He can’t be thrilled with Keith right now.”_

_“No, he can’t,” Allura echoed, the tone of her voice suggesting that she wasn’t either. Lance raises an eyebrow, but stays silent. Coran turns his attention to the castle’s descent, tense, worried._

_He should have told them about Zarkon._


	2. Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're all together again, but that fall that started when the Galra attacked at Kerberos keeps going. Tempers are short, words hurt. But even as they're sure that it's done, finished, Shiro and Keith cling to one hope. That it can't end like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies that this took so long to finish; it fought with me practically the whole way.

\---

_…and burn._

\---

Shiro’s shaking when the medical pod closes on Keith, who had yet to wake since Shiro first found him. He can feel the fit coming on, but doesn’t care.

_You were gone._

So true. He had been, in more ways than one. Gone, nowhere to be found, torturing Keith with ‘disappeared’, and then suddenly back, only not really. He stares blankly at the screen, registering the Altean letters that flash, but not understanding. He’s so tired all of a sudden.

“It’s bad,” Coran says quietly, “I won’t lie. He’s got a number of broken bones; collar-bone’s broken in two places, that’ll leave a mark. Worst is the dehydration. By what you five have told me about human physiognomy, he was at the limits when you found him.” Shiro can only nod dully, and Coran looks at him, worried. “Shiro, are you ok?”

Wasn’t that the question? He smiles bleakly, “As well as I can be Coran. I feel beat up.” _In more ways than one_ , but he didn’t finish voicing the thought. Coran only sighs, grips his shoulder.

“If you need to talk,” he says softly, and then the door opens, admitting the Princess and the others and anything else was cut off. Shiro, suddenly, feels his stomach clench. Something was coming, and he didn’t want to be around for it, let alone participate in it.

“What we you thinking?” Allura demands after Coran repeated Keith’s condition, her voice sharp, accusing. “Of all the foolish things—”

“Stop.” His voice is sharp, firm, more solid than it has any right to be, based on the turmoil within. “Just stop.” The mask falls, the one that is too familiar, and his back stiffens.

_The Champion! the announcer’s voice cries, and all he can do is stare and wish it would just go away. The mask allows no emotion, no weakness._

She stares at him in surprise, and then narrows her eyes, thins her lips. Shiro starts shaking, but continues anyway. He’s so _tired_ of being judged, watched all the time. His behaviour, leadership weighed and measured, held against some standard set 10,000 years ago that he can’t ever meet.

“What were _you_ thinking, letting yourself get captured?” He feels brittle. “Did you think about that, what you not being here means for this great fight to end the Galra’s control?” Now bitter, starting to break. “I did the best thing I could, with what was allowed to me. We _all_ did.” He wants to say something about how Keith almost—but can’t form the word, admit the fear, the thought.

“Shiro…” He stops, turns to see Hunk staring at his arm. His metal arm.

He looks down, stops breathing when he sees the purple energy oscillating around his clenched fist. The shakes are visible now, he can see it reflected in their eyes, and suddenly he just needs to get away now, as fast as possible, to flee the shame he feels and the pity that he knows will come. The fear that settles in their faces.

“I… I need a moment.” The anger’s gone, replaced by nerves and a twisting gut. And then he’s gone, ignoring their cries, Coran’s shouts after him. He runs after he turns the corner, flees towards Black’s hanger and the quiet acceptance, the safety that awaits him.

He flees, and leaves Keith behind, despite his earlier promise that he would wait until Keith came out, catch him if he fell. It cuts at him, that he has to do this, but it’s this or letting the fit catch him where everyone can see. He’s not ready for that, just yet. Maybe never. The broken promise to wait mocks him as he flees, echoes in discord with Sendak’s own mockery, laughing that here’s the proof for his broken state.

Black throws up the particle barrier behind him, dips his head so Shiro can climb in, break down in peace and the isolation offered by the Lion’s cockpit.

A while later, when the fit passes, he hears the Princess ordering him out over the com. He shuts it down angrily, thankful he didn’t also have his helmet for her to badger him over. It had remained, left behind, in the room with the med pods.

“I thought I had it Black,” he whispers in the silence that follows, knees curled up and his chin on his forearms. “I really did. But…” The image of his arm, flaring without his command, returned, turning his stomach. “What happened there? Did I lose control?” _Will it happen again?_ The Lion had no answers for him, only reassurances that it was there, always would be.

He looked at the clock on the control panel. Coran had said that Keith would wake in two days and a few ticks. So, figuring in Keith’s impatience, a little less than two days. He sighed. He’d go to his room in a bit, when it was quiet, lock himself in and take a shower, try to feel  human again. Grimaced; was that still possible? Then he’d be there when Keith woke, regardless of whether or not the Princess was lying in wait. He had little over a day, based on the time he’d spent curled around his fears.

Yes. That’s what he’d do.

\---

Cool mist steams around him, and then one of the confining walls is gone, and he’s bursting through into the open, free of the constraints he’d been pushing against for the past while.

_Med pod?_ He thinks groggily, trying to get his bearings, but then he’s falling, legs weak from the controlled atmosphere of the pod and his injuries. He lands, crashes, on the floor, grunting from the impact. But he doesn’t feel the pain it causes, thoughts catching up and moving on to other, more painful things. He remembers, quickly now, always fast, always impatient to get things done; Shiro _had_ found him, or at least he thought it was Shiro. That might have been another fever dream. He was back in the castle at any rate. But where was Shiro now?

Keith feels his heart contract, blinks away tears that threaten. He had tried to pretend otherwise, but to no avail. It was true, what his experience had always argued, that in the end, you could really only count on yourself.

The door opens as he’s pushing himself up, heart hardening against the pain.

“Geez Keith!” Lance exclaims, suddenly at his side, helping him stand. “You’re like, hours early!”

He can only nod, sit on the couch where Lance deposits him, accept the water that’s pushed at him. Coran’s peering at him, worried.

“It’s generally not advised to come out early,” he mutters, and Keith snorts. Of course it isn’t. But the walls had been pressing in and he had wanted _out._

More footsteps, the opening of the door, and he looks around. All present, save one. Where was Shiro. Suddenly he worries; had the Black Lion not made it back, had he been wrong?

“Shiro is fine,” Allura’s saying, her eyes sharp and a temper clearly stamped on her face. Keith starts feeling his back stiffen. “He’s with Black.” Lance’s eyes flick to glance at Allura, then roll back, and his mouth sets at what Allura’s tone and Lance’s eye roll means. He knows well how fragile Shiro’s emotional state has been; he’s tired and drained, conflicted and unsure of himself, but that doesn’t matter right now as he stares the Princess down.

“I’ve already asked him this,” she continues, and his eyes narrow. Pidge nudges Hunk, staring at him, but the Princess doesn’t notice. “But what were you thinking, taking on Zarkon like that? You could have been killed! Of all the foolish things possible, that has to be one of the worst.” And that’s it, it’s the _tone_ of her words that get him. They accuse him of being incompetent, of not knowing how to take care of himself. It’s not quite patronizing, but it’s getting there. His eyes blaze, and Allura stops talking, looks at him in surprise, then warily.

“What was _I_ thinking?” he feels the fire burn, hot and steady, and knows this is going to be one of the bad ones. Everyone thought he had a temper; now they’d know just what that meant. A passing thought wonders if anyone’ll talk to him after this; last time, everyone involved had been too scared to. “I’d ask _you_ the same. Shiro’s bayard was lost with Black’s Paladin, isn’t that right, _Princess_?” Coran tried to intercede, but Keith continued, voice low and furious. “So when, exactly, were you going to tell us that the Black Paladin wasn’t lost, but currently heads the Galra Empire? Or how else do you explain Zarkon’s use of the black bayard or the fact that he had pulled Shiro from Black?”

Allura stays silent, hands clenched, shoulders shaking slightly.

“I mean, it’s not like you would have lost anything,” he snaps, a flare to the furious cold that coursed through him. “You had five captive pilots! Kidnapped by the Blue Lion,” dimly he hears Lance make a noise in protest, attempt to defend his Lion, but he keeps going, “ages upon ages from home, one ready to reclaim whatever he could from the Galra, another desperate to find her family.” Pidge shifted uneasily, but Keith doesn’t care about her feelings right now. He’s too angry, too hurt, to care about anything other than getting the fire out of his chest. “But you didn’t tell us. And when we went in, _you_ continued to not tell us.” His angry gaze shifts to Coran. It hurt, that Coran hadn’t told them, hadn’t said anything more useful than _he’s too powerful!_ He had _trusted_ Coran.

“You sent us in unprepared for this fight,” turned back to the Princess. “So tell me, _Princess of Altea_ , who should be reconsidering their actions? Shiro’s managed the mess. Mine kept Zarkon from reclaiming the Black Lion. Yours almost got us killed.”

She was shaking with anger, emotion, something, he didn’t know really, or care to find out. “You lecture me on fighting Zarkon? My father—”

“Is dead and gone,” Keith interrupted harshly, throttling an old ache. “And it’s about time you stopped looking to the past and its ghosts and consider the present.”

Gasps told him that he had gone too far, again, and he decided that he wanted to leave _now_ , before they accused him again of being cold, of being out only for himself.

“Whatever,” he said softly, pushing himself up. “I’m done.”

He started for the door, but she grabbed his hand, stopping him. “You are sitting down,” she ordered, eyes flashing. “And not also running out.” But he only stares, silent, smoldering anger fueling his resolve. Normally he’s impatient and caves; now? He can outwait the falling of the stars if he needs to. Eventually she lets go of his wrist, and he’s gone, turning down the hallways until he can shut himself in his room.

He doesn’t hear Lance swear, doesn’t hear the sarcastic “Well that was fun. Two strikes, Allura, better be careful with the third.”

He doesn’t care, either, he tells himself as he curls up in the far corner of the bed, pressed against the wall, arms holding his legs as close to his chest as possible. Doesn’t care that no one stood up with him, that Shiro wasn’t there, that Allura had lied. What else did he expect?

As the ship dims, feigning night, he has himself almost convinced.

\---

Pidge finds him as he eases his way out of the service tunnels, feeling raw, exhausted beyond measure. He’d fallen asleep, hunched against Black, but he might as well have been awake for all the good it did him. The memories that pushed in … nightmares, not memories. Or so he wished. How he wished. Then they wouldn’t have happened, wouldn’t be real.

You can banish nightmares.

She starts to say something then stops, stares, blurts out, “You look like—” Stops, covers her mouth, embarrassed. He can only smile bleakly, it not reaching his eyes, the muscles sore. “I know Pidge, it’s ok.” He’s not sure how she can talk to him, after he lost control earlier, but doesn’t question it.

She stares, as if to judge the merit of his words, and then starts babbling that Keith had blown up at the Princess when she snapped at him, that Keith had then locked himself in his room, and they were all worried because Keith wasn’t answering when they knocked, shouted through the door, and he hadn’t had anything to eat since he woke.

“And Coran says that it’s imperative that he eat and drink something, since he came out hours early!” Pidge paused to catch her breath. “Lance suggested breaking in, but we figured that’d be a bad idea.”

“That’s probably the worst thing you could have done,” Shiro agreed tiredly. “Look, can you get some flight rations, or something easy to eat? Not the goo. Drop them off by my door. I need to shower,” he felt the dust of the desert planet crawling over him, restrained the shudder, “Then I’ll go see if I can get him to eat something.” He didn’t say talk. He had missed Keith waking, had no right to expect anything anymore.

Pidge nodded, paused, then asked, tentatively, “Shiro … you and Keith…” He winces, cuts her off before she can finish whatever she wanted to ask. “Pidge please, not now.” She nods, blushes. “Ok, but you should know, Lance has started speculating.”

This is, right now, the absolute last thing he needs, and he presses the heel of his hand against his forehead, restrains the groan and fights the tears. “So long as I can’t hear or see him doing so. And tell him to steer clear of Keith if he’s in a speculating mood.”

And then he’s heading down to his room, trusting her to find food, cutting the conversation off before it can get worse. Pidge doesn’t call after him, and he’s thankful for that.

He stands in the shower for as long as he can stand the hot water, steam fogging the small room, clouding out the past. He tries to lose himself in the thud of the jets throwing water against his back, soaking his hair as water cascades down his face. If only the water could wash away his fears as easily as it rid him of dirt and dried sweat.

_It couldn’t end like this._

Shiro had once laughed frequently. He had once smiled easily, stood tall. He hadn’t been afraid of greeting each new day, hadn’t had a knot of turmoil that gripped his stomach. He had once been able to sleep through the night, woke each day refreshed, ready. Keith used to call him an infernal optimist in the mornings. He had once possessed confidence, could draw on it when unsure of what to do. All of those things now, though, came and went in fits, in bits and pieces, none in tandem with all the others.

As the water pounded, Shiro could let the tears fall without having to admit they were there.

_I want it back,_ he grieved, _I want it_ all _back._

\---

Keith sat where he had first curled up, back pressed against the far corner of his bed, the one that sat against the weird wall that jutted out, dissecting the rectangular room so that it had a hallway of sorts. He liked having the bed here; it was dark, as secluded as possible, and it gave him something to lean on when he read from his tablet.

When first Hunk, then Pidge, Lance, and finally Coran knocked on his door, tried to talk to him, he ignored them. Stopped hearing them at some point, in fact, studiously focusing on anything else. He was good at it. Good at retreating into himself, ignoring the world. ‘Zoned out’ is what one of his foster siblings had called it, annoyed at his behaviour. He called it ‘break time,’ not that anyone asked.

After the first round of door knocking, he locked the door, in case they decided to come back and open it despite the fact that he had made it _very_ clear the last time Lance had shoved his fat head in that no one was to enter uninvited. So far they had respected that. He had a feeling tonight maybe not. When he heard scrabbling, and a “Dammit Keith, open the door already,” he felt a small smolder of satisfaction. He had been right. Hunk and Lance tried to get him out, but he ignored them; the door was staying locked and shut.

A small part of him protested, clenching in on itself, demanding that he heed it. He had friends now, it protested, and they were worried. He ignored it too; he had plenty of practice with avoiding that sore. Only now… it was harder to do so.

He had trusted them.

When the sounds from outside his door died down, he drew his knees in closer and rested his forehead on them, trying to ignore the tears that threatened to spill. He didn’t know how to handle the conflicted feelings, that he was glad they had given up and left, devastated that they hadn’t remained and argued with him further.

The shell that had protected him for so long argued that it was for the best. After all, everyone left; wasn’t that what always happened? But the arguments were weak, insubstantial in the face of what the past few weeks told him, jumbled as it was. That Shiro had left, but returned (and continued to try), even though he hadn’t been there. That Lance and the rest of the Trio were annoying as hell, but he liked having them around, even if they didn’t step in when the Princess started yelling at him. That Coran had seen him struggling to understand what was going on and had helped, unasked; surely that outweighed the fact that he hadn’t told Keith about Zarkon? And the Princess had yelled, but she had also fought as hard as any of them, and she had made sure to find them all, bring them home.

He blinked away the tears furiously. How had it come to that, so quickly, that he could call the cold castle ship home? His stomach knotted on itself, betrayed and confused, unsure why he was even feeling these things. Hadn’t he expected this, hadn’t he known it would happen, that everything would fall apart, like it _always did_?

Keith tightened his arms around his legs, grappled with himself. He felt lightheaded, but didn’t get up, didn’t seek the source. He’d be fine; he just needed to figure this out first… or get things under control.

And then there’s another knock, but this time it’s accompanied by another voice, one that causes hurt to rise and he knows he shouldn’t give into it but he’s tired and confused, and he’s not thinking straight. So when the knock comes again, with the quiet, “Open the door Keith,” he snaps out the unlock command and when Shiro steps into the dim room, glares stubbornly, sullenly, at him. Shiro looks tired and like he’s been through hell (again), but Keith doesn’t move.

He’s tired and hurt too.

\---

When Shiro feels whole enough to leave his room, food and water are waiting by his door. A note told him there was enough for two, so he’d better eat too, and he smiles for a moment before it fades and he sets off to find Keith.

He knows this isn’t going to go well, nor will it be easy.

Keith’s door is locked, as expected, but it only takes two tries and then Keith lets him in, fixing Shiro with the very best angry stare that Keith can produce. But it doesn’t hide the hurt, and so Shiro moves forward despite it, pushing his own to the side for the moment.

He kneels on the floor by the bed, directly opposite of Keith; he doesn’t sit on it, lets Keith keep his space. “Keith, have you eaten anything since you woke?”

It’s clearly the last question Keith expected, because the mask shifts, settles into a sullen shake of his head. Shiro passes him one of the ration bars and water bottles; Keith stares at them before accepting them grudgingly, gives Shiro a look that clearly says _you can leave now_. But Shiro just pulls out another ration bar, says “I’m not leaving until you eat that and drink all of that water.” Keith’s eyes narrow, mouth sets into a hard line.

“I thought you were going to die on me,” he says softly, holding Keith’s angry gaze, winces as shock and hurt flash across Keith’s face at his words. “So please, just eat the damn bar.” Keith complies, and Shiro has his own ‘dinner,’ finishes it before Keith does, who looks like he’s trying to force the food down.

_That’s what you get for being impatient_ , he almost says, but they’re too far apart for teasing right now.

“You weren’t there,” Keith says halfway through, setting the bar down and opening the water. His voice accuses, chooses anger to hide the pain. But Shiro knows Keith too well for that to work. _You can fool everybody else, but not me_ , Keith had told him; Shiro could have said the same thing right now. But he knows it won’t help, so he just nods. Here it comes.

“No, I wasn’t. And I’m sorry.” He sighs. “I can try and tell you why, if you’ll let me.” And he waits. Keith studies him, body still tense, still angry, and then he deflates, hunches in on himself. Shiro feels time stop. All the time he spent with Keith, before he left for Kerberos, all the time he spent watching him out of the corner of his eye, trying to gather the courage to ask Keith if he felt the same way about Shiro that Shiro felt about him… he knows what that posture means.

“I want to listen,” Keith whispers, not looking him in the eye, “But I can’t right now. It hurts too much. I’m too angry.”

All Shiro wants to do is shout, scream, break down. Enfold Keith in his arms, take away the pain that he sees reflected in Keith’s face and slumped posture, pain that _he_ caused, that reverberates back to him, amplifies that inflicted by the probing fingers that sought to diminish his spirit, his ability to love. But he knows it won’t help, that it will only make things worse.

“That’s ok,” he says hoarsely, trying to keep the tremors from his voice. Keith looks up, nervous. “Give me a few days?” To which Shiro can only smile in relief, nod, tell Keith to take as much time as he needs. Keith smiles weakly for a brief moment, straightens, and time moves again. Things just might be ok in the end.

“Now finish that,” Shiro indicates the half eaten bar. “Coran says that you need to eat since you came out early.” Keith’s face clouds, but he does as he’s told. When he finishes, Shiro stands to leave.

“Shiro,” Keith whispers, looking off into space, eyes fixed on the wall against which he leaned. “I can’t keep doing this.”

“I know Keith,” he replies softly, feeling the stab of pain at Keith’s words. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all of it, that I wasn’t there, that I haven’t been here.” Keith glances at him quickly, but otherwise Shiro might have been talking to a wall. And it hurts, hurts so much that when he reaches the door, he looks back and says softly, “You never told me how hard it is to get back what you bury deep inside,” before he turns away and leaves, suddenly ashamed at the accusation, if it was one. It must have been; why else say it? Why say it at all? Keith was only being honest, admitting the truth of the matter. Ashamed, sick, Shiro flees.

He misses the shock on Keith’s face that disrupts the emotionless mask. Misses the pillow that gets thrown at the door in frustration before Keith finally breaks down and cries.

\---

The door’s locked again, and he’s pressed against the wall facing the door, breathing as deeply as he can, trying to keep the hurt at bay. He should have known, really should have. When had things gone any other way?

His fault; who was he to tell Shiro that he couldn’t take this, when Shiro had spent a year with those bastards, fought like hell to get home and then got thrown back into the fire? What right did he have to claim to Shiro’s attention right now?

He’d messed things up, just like always. Keith buries his head in his arms, tears streaming silently down. Who wants a sullen kid, angry young man anyways? Too much trouble for the good families, eventually, quickly usually, the same for the bad ones. One quiet, angry kid to be forgotten in the mass of unwanted, abandoned children. He tried to make sure that the little ones got the attention they needed, didn’t call any to himself; he was already broken, just needed to make sure they stayed whole. And they did, mostly. Went off to families who cared for them, loved them. Keith bounced back and forth, never at one place long enough to make friends, never having a home. Not until the cabin.

Foster-fathers lectured him about his attitude. Foster-mothers guilted him into behaving, into ‘being polite.’ Foster siblings teased him, tried to play games with him sometimes, more often didn’t bother. Sure, there had been a few good ones, but overall… But really, it had been his own fault. He had refused to trust the opportunities given him, had kept himself apart; lectures met sullen stares, silence. Who’d want that?

Keith shook, crying silently as he always had, since that day when he got the news. What had he been thinking? He knew it was over, it just had to be after that. But it couldn’t, it just couldn’t. For once, he didn’t want it to be. But he didn’t know how to stop the fall before everything broke to pieces for real. Or broke beyond repair.

\---

_They’re all sitting in the kitchen when Allura comes in, stilling the aimless conversation they had going._

_“Have either of them come out?” she asks quietly, almost timidly. Hunk shrugs, “If you can call it that. Shiro talked to Keith, but’s back in his room. Pretty sure Keith’s still holed up.”_

_She nods, leans against the counter. “How badly did I mess things up?” Her face is sad, worried._

_They look at one another, helpless, unsure as to the answer. “We’re not the ones to ask,” Pidge finally admits. “Lance is the only one who had classes with Keith really, and Shiro…” she shrugged. Lance echoed the gesture, conveying the relative lack of use his knowledge of Keith’s temper was. “Your guess is as good as ours,” Pidge continued. “Less badly with Shiro. More with Keith.”_

_Allura snorted, but nodded. “And with you guys?” She asked quietly._

_They stare, didn’t expect the question. Hunk finally answers, feeling the need to ease some of the worry flooding her face._

_“We’re ok,” he assures. “Both you and Keith were right.”_

_“Yeah,” Lance chimed in. “Like, who does that? But really, don’t get captured again. That sucked.”_

_She smiled, laughed, “It’s a promise.” Then looks at Hunk inquisitively, asks what has him thinking so hard. He shrugs, looks uncomfortable._

_“Asked Shiro what was up with Keith,” he admitted. “When he was headed back. He looked like … like he had just lost something, someone, I dunno. He just said that everyone always left and why should we be any different?”_

_“Everyone left Keith?” Pidge’s voice is quiet, tremulous. Hunk shrugs. “What does that even mean?” Lance demanded, but they could only look at one another helplessly. Two people knew that answer, but neither was talking, to anyone, at the moment._

_“We gotta,” Hunk said after a moment, voice soft but fierce, “We_ need _to let Keith know that we’re not going anywhere.” Allura and Pidge nod, Lance looks like he’s going to make a smartass comment before he thinks better of it and nods as well._

_“Shiro as well,” Pidge adds, face serious. “He needs to know he can talk to us about what happened.” Lance looks confused, then understanding dawns. “PTSD,” he whispers, Pidge nods. Allura looks confused, until, from behind they hear, “Heart-sickness Princess.” Coran’s in the doorway, looking tired. “He knows. We just need to wait until he’s comfortable enough to do so.”_

_\---_

Black’s cockpit feels too close for his nerves right now, so Shiro’s off pacing the hallways, the old corridors that servants must have used because they’re full of dust and he’s never seen anyone else back here. There’s a track through the dust, evidence of his passings since he started avoiding his bed and his nightmares not long after this whole mess started.

Hagar’s pressing her claws against him, telling him to give into the anger, to let go of the pain by embracing it. She’s asking for those that he loves, croons that she knows he has parents out there, that he can’t hide their faces from her, that she can sense the other, whoever it is that calls to his heart. _Let her go_ , she hisses, probing into his memories, searching. She has it all wrong, not that he’ll correct her. He pushed his memories deep, hid them from her as best he could, preferring to focus on the recent events, or his capture by the Galra over what she wants him to remember. They’re small victories, when she snarls at his stubbornness, but he’ll take them. They sustain him as the victories in the arena drain him.

There’s a ghost of a fit lingering in the back of his mind, and he nods towards it, but it doesn’t come forward, just lingers, mocks. Reminds him of the words he threw back in Keith’s face. Keith had told him about his buried memories in trust; what the hell had been thinking, using that against Keith? He had no right to have done so. He had left. He had been gone after promising that he would always come back. Sometimes he wondered if he had come back, or if someone else had. Sendak’s words still echoed in his nightmares on and off, adding to the cacophony that was Hagar’s probes and laughs, the roar of the arena, the needing cries and clutches of the other slaves. Only one to survive the arena this long in ages, he gave them hope when before there had been none. Sometimes he had wondered about how good that hope had been; wistfully, some had told him that if he won enough acclaim, he’d be set free. A false dream, that. Was that what had happened, when Hagar tried to make him into a weapon for the Galra? He still couldn’t remember how he lost his arm, wasn’t sure he wanted to, ever.

Turning a corner, Shiro pauses, leans into the junction of the walls, head pressed against one arm with the other, hand in a fist, pushing against the wall. He doesn’t bang it, much as he feels the need to, for fear that someone will hear it and disrupt his sanctuary, such as it is. Tears force their way  past his tightly shut eyes, and he breathes raggedly, trying to control himself. It’s done; it has to be. Keith’s put up with enough, more than enough, far more than he should have had to because Shiro couldn’t keep himself together.

Oh, but how he wishes for just one more chance. It can’t, _can’t_ , end like this.

\---

Lance finds him curled up in a forgotten corridor off one of the service tunnels, hiding from the accusations that linger, echo, in his room. He almost tells him to go away when Lance sits down beside him, quiet for once, but can’t make the words work. The war inside continues, part of him yearning to have things turn out differently this time, part insisting that it doesn’t matter, that it would always be the same.

“So …” Lance begins awkwardly, “You wanna talk?” He glares, shakes his head. “Yeah, figured. Guess you’ll just have to listen then.”  And then Lance is talking, going on about ridiculous things that don’t matter, like what everyone at Garrison is doing, and how Hunk and Pidge are trying to get the video game coding on her laptop to work on the Altean systems. How he managed to get Coran to print a deck of cards for them, that there’s a new flavor to ‘change things up’ with the goo, and suddenly he can’t take anymore.

“Will you shut up already?!” he demands hotly, not looking at Lance, who’s stopped talking, but doesn’t retort. Just looks at him. Ashamed, he turns away, pulls his legs in closer.

“We were talking about what we miss most about Earth,” Lance said softly. “Started off with food and music, but then Pidge said she missed her mom and we’re all bawling about our families.” Paused. “What about you Keith?”

He doesn’t answer; Lance already knows the answer to that, or so it seems.

“Hunk said that Shiro told him everybody always left you. What did he mean?”

“If you need me to tell you,” he hisses, voice harsh, angry to hide the long ache of grief, “then you’re denser than I thought.”

“Ha ha. It’s actually not that clear, genius. What, did you get shuttled off to boarding school every year? Gran’s? Or—”

“Foster care, alright?” he snaps, temper frayed and short and just wanting, more than anything, for Lance to just _leave_ so he could go back to comfortably ignoring the wound, instead of having an annoying idiot poke at it. Not that ignoring it was comfortable, but it was more so than what was currently happening. “Now get the fuck away.” But Lance is just shaking his head, refuses to budge. Doesn’t even move when Keith transfers his glare onto Lance, though there’s a momentary flinch, a resizing of the situation. Not bad enough, though, for Lance to pack it up.

“How long?” Instead is all he asks, and a weariness settles over Keith. Lance clearly isn’t going anywhere, and it’s not like he’s kept this a secret. He just doesn’t like talking about it.

“Long enough,” he sighs, turning to stare straight ahead. “Did nobody…” Lance begins hesitantly, stops when Keith shakes his head, knows how the question’s supposed to end. “No. They all returned me.”

“Returned?” He nods, and Lance rolls his eyes indignantly. “‘Return’ sounds like what you do with bad gifts or broken tech. Not people.”

“Yeah, well,” he hunches in. “We weren’t always that.” It takes a moment for his meaning to set in, and Lance swears softly. “Look Lance, whatever you want, just ask and then will you please leave me alone?”

“One, I wanted to make sure you’re ok. Two, no.” Snorts when Keith gives him a weird look. “Like we’re not allowed to worry about you when you’re being an idiot?”

He almost says no one has, but that’s not true. He can count on two hands the number of people who have over all the years, homes, schools, and social workers, and while most have disappeared from his life, he won’t do disservice to them. “Few have,” he says weakly instead. “Yeah, and you’re kind of arguing with one of them, aren’t you?” He doesn’t need to answer that, so he doesn’t.

Lance is silent for a while, and Keith begins to think that that’s it. But then, “You know, when I first saw you in class, I thought you were the biggest asshole ever.” Keith raises an eyebrow, wondering how that was supposed to help at all (he had figured out how Lance felt about him pretty quickly; the feeling was mutual). “But until you blew that record in sims, I could ignore you. But once that happened, man.” He blows out a sigh, shakes his head. “All these people I thought were my friends suddenly wanted to spend all their time with you, talked about you all the time. To hear it, you were the next star of Garrison. And all that attention? You didn’t even want it, and that made it worse.”

He remembered that. He had _hated_ the brief accolade that he scores had given him; everyone had figured out pretty quickly, though, that the recognition of his skills did little to change his opinions on socializing. “Thing is,” Lance continued, voice tight. “I had never been alone until I came to Garrison. I have a _huge_ family.” Keith nods, remembers the image Lance had been thinking of from when they first tried to meld and practice forming Voltron. “Always surrounded by people, ton of friends back home too. So when everyone flocked to you, I realized that all those friends I had made weren’t really friends. And I was mad. But when everyone came back, it was easier to be mad at you, blame you for taking my friends than to admit that they had never been friends in the first place.”

“Or that people are horrible creatures?” Lance shoves him in annoyance at his cynical tone. “You’re a dumbass, you know that? But I’m no longer mad at you, and you’re my friend now. And that means I’m going to sit here in this cold hallway until I’m convinced you’re ok. You’re stuck with me.”

He had clearly included the last bit as a joke, an invitation for Keith to chip back, join into their familiar pattern of argument. But the bald, honest statement that he was Lance’s friend had his brain on overdrive, panic almost.

“Do you know what the longest I stayed in one place was, before I got dumped at Garrison?” he asks quietly, answers one year, barely, when Lance shakes his head, doesn’t give the number of homes he stayed in; Lance gets the idea. “I don’t know how to have friends. I break everything.”

“You remember Kyle and Harrison?” His roommates, of course he does. “After you skipped town, they defended you whenever someone made fun of you. Before too, really, though everyone was so scared that there was less of that. They said you guys were all friends.” He doesn’t know what to say, just stares. Lance smiles. “Keith, you can be a pain in the ass sometimes. Actually, a lot of the time.” Grins when Keith rolls his eyes. “We get that, it’s ok. How is that any different from us putting up with Hunk and Pidge going on about all that tech crap?”

He hunches in, wanting so _much_ to believe what Lance is saying, but feeling the fear that again, everything will just fall to pieces around him. “Why do you even care?” he asks, not angry, just confused. Lance shrugs. “Why not? Hard to tell if you’ll find a friend in someone unless you try.” That’s what his gran always said anyway, he told Keith.

At that moment, Keith understands why people gravitated to Lance despite his aggravating stories and childish behaviour, why the Blue Lion had chosen him as its pilot. Sure, he was annoying, but that acceptance that anybody could be a friend was a welcome change to the indifference that most people gave off.

He leans his head against the wall, stares at the ceiling, then sighs. “Figures. Any good thought you have comes from someone else.” Lance punches him and he smiles weakly as Lance smiles in return.

“Good to have you back, Mullet-head.”

He leaves Lance at the junction to the kitchen, claiming that he needs to change. And he means to, but in the dark of his room, the fight with Shiro comes back, and suddenly the strength of what Lance told him fades in the face of what’s happened. So he stands there, staring into space, trying to get past the self-doubts, the assurance that he will continue to break everything he touches, to get back towards that hope that things _will_ be better. He had believed that once, before Kerberos.

\---

Hunk finally tracks him down, after he had brushed past him earlier, fleeing, ashamed, after letting out what he had about Keith’s past. It wasn’t his story to tell.

“Shiro man,” he clapped his hand on Shiro’s shoulder, startling him. For a moment he panicked, looked down at his hand, but it was cool and dark, not responding to the shock. “Sorry. Look, you ok?” Question on everyone’s mind, it seemed.

“Fine Hunk.” But Hunk doesn’t believe him because he just shakes his head, hands Shiro a box with food in it. “Yeah, sure man. Like those ration bars Keith likes are actually food. I made it myself, so you better eat it.” He smiles weakly, takes the box and starts eating. Hunk moves over to stare out of the small window that Shiro had been standing in front of.

“Looks so dark, doesn’t it?” he asks. “I remember, when we had to go on that survival trip, how out in the desert there was no light from the buildings, so you could see all the stars.” He’s smiling at the memory, and Shiro nods, remembers his own survival trip from his final year as a cadet.

Hunks rubs the back of his neck. “Look, I know you don’t like talking about it, but Coran figures he knows enough about Galra tech that he can run check-ups on your arm, make sure things are holding together.” His blood goes cold, but he nods. “Was probably just a tech glitch, y’know,” Hunk continues, offering him something other than _breaking to pieces_ to explain what had happened. He appreciates it, tries to hang onto that rather than what he fears is the real reason.

“We’re making good progress with Red,” Hunk continues, moving on to a more comfortable subject. “No idea where Keith is, but will you let him know if you see him?” Nods again, can try to at least. If Keith is even still speaking to him.

“How’s the food?”

“Really good,” he shoves the last piece into his mouth, hands the box over when Hunk holds out his hand. “Can you convince Coran to let you cook more often?” Hunk laughs, he grins. “Thanks Hunk.”

“Anytime man; what’re friends for? You hear about the games night?” Hunk’s so excited, it’s catching. “It’ll be in a few days, I think. Pidge has dug out the coding for some games that she put on her laptop for a dare. Just trying to get the Altean tech to work with it. Focusing on the multiplayer games for now.”

“That sounds great Hunk,” he says, grinning widely. “Let me know when you guys get it set up. I’m a wicked Mario Cart player.”

Saluting, Hunk returns the grin. “Good, you can kick Lance’s ass for me then. And will do.” He stays for a bit, but then leaves to return to Red’s hanger, to continue the repairs. Shiro turns back to the stars, thoughts first on video games and then on home, on that place he can never return to. There’s a hole in him, gaping and empty, and it hurts. There are people there he wants, needs, to return to, his parents, but his broken brain shies away from the thought of them as soon as it can.

He turns away from the hangers, retreats to the dark hallways. The fight, the loss… it all has him so upturned that he can’t think straight, can’t focus on one problem enough to solve it and move on to the others. Everything is muddled together, mud that he sinks into. He sighs. One step at a time, that’s what he’d always been told. He remembers the comfort of the voice saying that, the steady presence that accompanied the voice, his father’s. He breathes, draws on the security the though provides. One thing at a time. Then the next.

He settles into a cross-legged seat, back leaning against the wall, head tipped back and eyes closed. Time to sort the mess, first thing to do. Then move on to the first complete mess he unearths.

_One step at a time._

\---

He needs to remember that he can do something, that he can do something that doesn’t end in disaster, that doesn’t break. He’s good at two things: fighting and flying, and he’s had enough of the first for now.

Red’s still out, but there’s no challenge there even if he had been awake. Keith knows that he could fly Red through anything now. No, no challenge, nothing to force the crippling self-doubt he’s feeling to go back to its cage. But the Altean pods? Those might offer the challenge he needs.

He shuts off the coms before he fires it up, meeting no one as he took the service tunnels down to the pod hanger. Coms are off, so he can’t hear Coran shouting at him as he takes off for the planet they’re orbiting. He doesn’t know if he can breathe its atmosphere, but the pod’s readouts assure him that there are no corrosive gases and that it’s unpopulated. Perfect for what he wants, needs. He doesn’t need to get out, only to cut through the air and spiral around the planet’s surface. Rise only to plummet, to test his skills, court disaster and then dive away. He’s such a mess, this is the only way he can feel like a competent human being. But whatever works, right?

The pod flings itself away from the castle, flying fast, faster towards the planet’s atmosphere, a red-hot point of light as it tears through. Adrenaline rushes through him, and he loses himself to the thrill of the stolen flight. He can’t hear anything other than the soft whine of the ship, the echo of his breaths. The walls aren’t pressing down, no one to yell at him. He can’t hear Coran freaking out, Lance’s comments, the Princess’ frustrated demand about whether he solved all of his problems by stealing ships.

But most importantly, he can’t hear the echo of his anger at Shiro, or Shiro’s at him.

\---

The castle’s sirens knock him back to reality, and he makes his way as quickly as he can to the castle’s command room. The others are staring at the screens, and he sees a pod enter the atmosphere of the planet they’re orbiting.

“Someone’s gotta go after him,” Hunk whispers, to which Lance just rolls his eyes. “Cause we can catch him?” They’re arguing over the merits of chasing Keith. At least Lance has, momentarily, admitted that his abilities aren’t the same as Keith’s.

“I’ll go,” he hears himself say, and they stop, stare, as if they hadn’t heard him come in. Maybe they hadn’t, attention focused on the screen and Keith’s defiance of sanity. As his words process they all look concerned. “It’ll be ok,” he assures, not sure if it will be or not. “I need to talk to him anyways.” _And he won’t listen to you_ , but he didn’t say that. They didn’t need to hear it confirmed, their suspicions about Keith’s current temper.

“Shiro,” Allura says as he’s leaving, and he stops, looks at her. She looks tired, but don’t they all? “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled. And you’re right, I should have been more careful on the Galra cruiser.” He smiles, glad not to be fighting with two people. “It’s ok, but thanks. I’ll be back soon hopefully, with Keith.” And it is. After all, she was right; it had been a foolish decision to go after her the way they did. They should have known that Zarkon would expect them, be waiting. And tempers had been high, so he couldn’t really blame her for being short, though he did appreciate the apology.

And then he’s gone, heading for Black, taking the Lion out and aiming for the planet’s surface where Keith entered the atmosphere. He doesn’t bother chasing Keith, knows the Lion could reach the pod but that the ship’s small size and dexterity in Keith’s hands would mean that Keith would have him chasing dust trails in minutes. Instead he sets down and, assured that the atmosphere is breathable (he’s not wearing his suit, can’t rely on it), exits, sits on top of Black’s nose. He watches the pod streak across the sky, weave itself in and out of the fantastic rock formations that dot this part of the planet. The grasses mix purple stems with green-gold tufts, and strange tree-like plants clump together on small hillocks. Outside of the ship, he feels himself relax, content for the moment to watch Keith show off.

His right arm processes the feel of the wind against it, and he looks down, nervous. Nothing else had happened, yet … Perhaps it had been a one off, caused by the stress of searching for Keith and finding him, the fight with the Princess. Perhaps. He clenched his hand into a fist, staring at the metal appendage. Perhaps, but he feared the loss of control would prove to be like the fits, repetitive and here to stay.

\---

He notices the Black Lion as soon as it enters the planet’s atmosphere, but when Shiro doesn’t come after him, Keith puts Black’s appearance to the side and concentrates on flying the pod. When he’s flying Red, there’s something so intrinsically _right_ about it, that he doesn’t have to think really. Most of the thinking has to do with keeping tabs on everyone else. But flying a pod requires a different set of skills and concentration, and it’s pure joy to work them again, realise that they hadn’t been lost. He won’t give Red up for anything, but he doesn’t want to give up this as well.

Shiro’s waiting for him when he lands the pod by Black, a calmness on his face and in his posture that Keith hasn’t seen in a long time.

“Sun’s setting,” he whispers once Keith clambers up to sit by him, and when Keith turns to follow Shiro’s gaze, he sees that it is, in fact, doing so. They sit in silence, watching the dying light filter through the atoms in the atmosphere and stain the sky myriad colours. It almost feels like before Kerberos.

“Remember when we used to sit out on the admin building?” Shiro asked, eyes distant. He nods. “When I was locked up, when Hagar wasn’t trying to change me, or whatever it was, that’s what I remembered. The way the sun looked, how it turned everything red. How you always seemed so at peace with everything then.”

“You were there,” Keith admits before he can think about the words and what they mean. What they might mean. “And we were there, out of the walls. That’s all I needed.” He pauses. “I thought about those days too, when you were missing.”

Shiro doesn’t say anything, just stares at the sky. Keith looks out across the land, noticing how here the dying light turns the land a deep purple, drawing out the colour in the grass stalks, under the red of the light.

“I buried you Keith,” Shiro whispers hoarsely. “I buried you as deep as I could, because Hagar had found my …” he sighs, shakes his head, and Keith knows the memory is too painful to admit. “I couldn’t let her get you too. But now, I can’t get back. Every time I try,” he shuts his eyes, hangs his head. “It just falls to pieces. And I don’t know what to do. Everything just … fails. And I’ve hurt you because of it.”

It’s true, but Keith realizes with a (welcome) shock that he’s not angry. So he moves forward, shifts so that he can wrap his arms around Shiro, press his chest against Shiro’s back, rest his forehead on Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro’s hands grip his, fingers interlace, and they’re both hanging on for dear life.

“We can only move forward,” he whispers, “That’s what Nan told me, when I stayed with her. She said I’d lost too much to go back; best thing was to pick up what I could, move forward with who I was now. I think … I think she’d say the same to you.” She had been one of the good ones, an older woman who took the problem children. But a few months after Keith arrived, the doctors pronounced she had three months to live, terminal brain cancer. She had made it six, but died all the same. He’d gone to her funeral, silent at this one.

“How did you manage it?” Shiro asked, voice rough, clutching at Keith. He thinks, sighs. “I don’t know. It was hard. I don’t know if I’ve even managed it, but I tried, keep trying.” Pauses, clings to Shiro. “Just … if I’m not a piece you can pick up, le—”

“You are the piece I will _always_ pick up,” Shiro interrupts him fiercely, twisting so that he can face Keith. Then softens, “If you want.”

He extricates one of his hands from Shiro’s, but it’s only so he can throw it around Shiro’s neck, pull them closer together as Shiro lets go of his other hand, wraps his arms tightly around Keith.

“I missed you so much,” he whispers, face buried in the press of Shiro’s shoulder, feels the strong arms around him tighten. “I missed you too Keith,” Shiro whispers back.

“Don’t go again, please?” he begs after a moment, and Shiro is still before he promises that he won’t, that he will keep this promise, no matter what, and Keith feels the tension inside release, settles so he can watch the last of the sunset with Shiro, arms wrapped around one another.

It’s twilight and deep green settles over this strange world, but for the two on top of the great Lion, it may as well have been the secluded space on top of the old admin building on Earth that looked out over the desert.

\---

He remembers this, the way that Keith goes limp, boneless when he’s completely relaxed and he can only smile at it. They sit in silence, Shiro mulling over what Keith had said. Pick up the pieces, move forward. Could it really be that simple? He was broken, they were everywhere; could he put Humpty Dumpty back together again? Perhaps, one step at a time. Starting now…

“Keith,” he says softly, feels Keith shift, look up at him. “I wasn’t there because I panicked.” Keith’s silent, but his hands tighten their grip on Shiro. “I fought with the Princess, and I could feel it come on, and …” He chokes back the words, suddenly unsure what to say, shakes his head helplessly.

“It?” Keith asked quietly, moving one hand so that it rests on Shiro’s arm, thumb lightly rubbing circles. The touch is familiar, comforting, reassures enough that he can let go a ragged breath and answer, admit to the trembling fits that seize him, the black-outs of fear that Keith calls panic attacks and that he admits is as good a name as any.

“They started when the Galra crystal took over,” he admitted, and Keith’s face darkens, admonishes him that he was to have gone to Keith, as he kind of said he would. “I just couldn’t …” Sighs. “I kept hearing Sendak, over and over. I thought if I gave it enough time, they’d just go away and things would go back to being normal.” He snorts. “As if that’d happen.”

“Life’s a bastard,” Keith agreed. “What did he say Shiro? You never said.” His blood goes cold, but nothing else has worked, and Sendak still lingers in his nightmares. Tried everything else, only one thing left. But he couldn’t, didn’t want to think, let alone say the words. He’d already said them once, in the silence of Black’s cockpit. But then he remembers how he had come back to himself after that and so he sighs, presses his head against Keith’s, tries to hide his face in Keith’s hair so that even though he will have to hear the words he will speak, at least he won’t see anything.

“A broken soldier,” he whispers. “A monster.” He’s shaking, but it’s from nerves, not a fit, or so he hopes. Telling Keith about the fits is one thing, making him sit through one is another; he doesn’t think he could handle that.

“Galra lie,” Keith said fiercely, cupping his chin and moving Shiro’s head so that Keith could look him in the eyes. “Look at me Shiro. You’ve been through hell, but you came out of it still you.”

“But my arm…” Keith’s shaking his head, maintains his light grip on Shiro’s arm, the metal one. The tech that betrayed him earlier. “It’s _yours_ Shiro. Not theirs. It obeys your brain and your commands, just like your other arm does.”

He wants to believe it, but the memory of the fight with the Princess comes back, and when Keith asks what he’s thinking about, he knows that Keith can see he’s unconvinced. Admits to the loss of control. Keith only looks down to his arm, slides his hand down to interlock his fingers with Shiro’s, refuses to let go.

“Did you ever think that it was trying to protect you?” Shiro stares; that thought had never occurred to him. “Against Allura?” he asks, doubtful. Keith shrugs. “Tech doesn’t know the difference between an emotional threat and a physical one, especially if you were about to have one of those fits.” He frowns, but nods. Maybe. “Just think on it,” Keith whispers.

He will, but right now he just wants to turn back to the moment. But first… “Can you forgive me?” he asks. “For being too caught up in my fear, for not being there?”

“Will you actually talk to me about these things now?” Laughing ruefully, he says he will, that even if he can’t get the words to work he will try, and Keith smiles, says yes. And that’s all he needs to hear before he draws Keith into a long kiss that turns fierce and fast.

\---

It feels good to be in this moment, to feel Shiro pressed up against him, the fire of his touch and kiss. But, too soon, the annoyingly familiar tension in his chest starts up, and he pulls back, still clutching at Shiro, but trying to get the space he needs at the same time.

“You ok?” Shiro asks, loosening his grip slightly. He nods, sighs. “Sorry,” he breathes, embarrassed and frustrated at himself. “Don’t be, it’s ok,” Shiro tells him, placing a light kiss on his forehead, pulling him down so that they can lie in a loose embrace, staring up at the stars as they come out.

He can hear the slow beat of Shiro’s heart, feels the rise and fall of his chest. He’s missed this, and the fact that he has it again is enough to push away his lingering frustration at himself and his own issues.

“I wonder which one is the ship,” Shiro says absently as the twilight darkens. Keith shrugs; doesn’t know, doesn’t care at the moment. All that’s waiting for him there is lectures and trouble. Shiro seems to sense his discomfort, since he asks what Keith and the Princess argued about. He frowns, doesn’t want to talk about it, but since they’re sharing … he sighs.

“She asked me what I was thinking, like I wasn’t able to think of the consequences.” Shiro sighed, said she had demanded the same of him. “I asked her why she hadn’t told us about Zarkon, and then she told me not to lecture her on fighting Zarkon. Was about to say something about the king before I cut her off.” He pauses. “It didn’t end well. I yelled at Coran as well.”

“Same reason?”

“All he said was Zarkon was too powerful; it would have been helpful to know _why_.”

Shiro’s quiet, but he pulls Keith in close, and he remembers what Shiro had said about finding him. “I’m ok,” he reminds Shiro, hand reaching up to stroke his cheek. He could see Shiro’s weak smile, just barely, in the fading light. “I know,” he whispers, “But you scared me. If the ship hadn’t arrived when it did…” Shakes his head, doesn’t finish the sentence, but Keith doesn’t need him to. From his own memories and the fact that he woke up in a med pod, he knows it had been bad. “But it did,” he says softly, “and I’m ok now.” Shiro just nods, presses a kiss against Keith’s forehead, rubs a hand up and down Keith’s arm. He wonders if Shiro is reassuring himself that this is real, that he is in fact here and ok. He doesn’t say anything, just maintains his hold, shifts to a more comfortable position so that his hip wouldn’t keep digging into the metal below them.

Shiro laughs when he mutters that this would be more comfortable on the ground, teases that that’s what he gets for being so skinny. He falls back into the old pattern, retorts that Shiro sounds like his mother, only to push himself up in concern as Shiro freezes, clutches at him.

“You’re ok, I’m sorry,” he babbles, unsure what to do or say. Shoves the panic of _I’ve done it, messed up again_ , down, that isn’t helpful right now. “You’re ok, you’re safe.” Shaking his head, Shiro tries to say he’s fine, but Keith can see the fear in his eyes, so when Shiro pulls him close, Keith lets him and then rolls onto his back, pulling Shiro with him and wrapping his arms around him.

“My parents…” Shiro begins hoarsely after a few minutes of clinging to Keith, head buried as Keith holds on, trying to give what comfort and security he could. “Do you know, are they safe?”

“I haven’t seen them since they came to Garrison for the official ruling on Kerberos,” he admitted, “A few months after they recorded your expedition as missing. They were worried about you. They didn’t believe what Garrison was saying either, or at least, your dad didn’t.” He can feel Shiro relax slightly, and he relaxes too.

“Hagar found them,” Shiro whispers. “When she dug around in my head. Told me that they were gone. I’d have these nightmares, see them die in all sorts of ways.” Keith clutches tighter, remembers Shiro’s parents and how close Shiro was to them and thinks that there is little worse than that to torture Shiro with. “I didn’t want to believe her, but I couldn’t get away from it.” Laughs bleakly. “Been avoiding that, just like everything else.”

“They’re safe on Earth,” he says, trying to give Shiro something to counter that particular nightmare with. “Far away from all this mess.” Shiro’s answering question of “for how long?” is cynical, and Keith has no answer for him, only holds on and hopes that whatever happens in the fight against the Galra, that Shiro will be able to make it back home and be with his parents again.

\---

Hearing that his parents are on Earth, even if Keith only saw them months ago, helps calm him, as does the feel of Keith’s arms around him and the steady presence of Black, supporting them both.

“Thank you,” he whispers, feels Keith tighten his arms briefly in response. Sighs, he then lets go and pushes himself up so that he’s sitting, staring out over the dark landscape before him. He nods when Keith asks if he’s ok, pushing himself up as well, admits that he’s getting tired of regaining his memories only to have something new to panic over. “You’ll get it,” Keith tells him, and Shiro wishes he had that kind of confidence in himself right now. He wants to ask how Keith does it, but instead looks around. Sees the pod, smiles ruefully.

“Why the pod?” he asks, and Keith ducks his head, embarrassed. “To remind myself that I can actually do something other than fight with everyone,” he mutters quietly. “Maybe that’s what I need to do,” Shiro says absently, and Keith laughs. “Model cadet and officer, stealing a pod?” He joins in, admitting that the image is as ridiculous as Keith finds it.

The stars are out in full now, but none are familiar. He looks up, finds it odd that these dying balls of light can feel so comforting, but so alien at the same time.

“Sometimes I wish I could just make them shift into the right spots,” Keith sighs, staring up at the stars as well. “Just …” Fall silent, shakes his head. “Just to have something familiar?” He finishes, and Keith nods, eyes still on the stars as if he could do just that right now. Shiro shifts so he can pull Keith into a loose embrace, Keith’s back against his chest. At least this is familiar.

“I read the book you gave me,” Keith tells him, voice thoughtful, and Shiro smiles. “Catch-22?” Resting the back of his head on Shiro’s shoulder, Keith nods. “You were right, I did like it. Weird at times, but I liked it.”

“I didn’t know what to think of it,” Shiro admits, “When I had to read it for school. But it grew on me.”

“I miss my books,” Keith whispers after a moment. “I can’t read the books in the library, they’re all in Altean.”

“Maybe Pidge can rig something up for you with Coran,” he suggests, and Keith shrugs in that way that says ‘yeah maybe’ and means that he isn’t convinced. He made a mental note to ask them about it, at some point when both he and Keith were no longer in whatever trouble they’d gotten themselves into.

They sit there, silent, watching the stars and content to just be. Eventually, a low rumble from Black brings them back to reality, to the fact that it was late and getting cold.

“Is he telling us to go to bed?” Keith asked skeptically, causing him to laugh, because that was, essentially, what Black’s rumble had been for.

As they get up, he feels Keith tense. “You don’t think they’ll be waiting…?” Shaking his head, he pulls Keith in for a kiss, says they’ll be fine, then pauses and groans as he remembers what Pidge said about Lance. When Keith demands what’s going on, sighs and tells him. “I’m going to kill him in his sleep,” Keith promises darkly. He laughs, admonishes Keith to at least wait until they find a replacement pilot for Blue; grudgingly, Keith assents.

“Come on,” he says, “Let’s go back. Hunk says that they’re making good progress with Red, you can check in on him.” Keith nods, smiles as if some tension has just left.

\---

Shiro finds him in Red’s hanger, staring at the damage he caused, his earlier relief fading in the sight of what remains. Most of the body work is done, but the exposed wiring on the leg betrays just how damaged it had been.

“You ok?” Shiro asks quietly, and all he can do is shrug. Maybe? Guilt eats at him; this is what his anger and impatience caused. “Give me a moment?” Shiro nods, waits as Keith goes up to Red, places his hand on the Lion’s foreleg and looks up.

He had told himself and the others that he fought Zarkon to keep the king from reclaiming the Black Lion, and that’s how it had started. He had planned on just keeping the Lion out of Zarkon’s reach. But then the fight started and his impatience won out. He should have listened to Coran; Zarkon was too powerful for just one to take on. But what was the other option, let him take Black? Keith didn’t know, the pull between the two, equally bad options too strong.

“Sorry Red,” he mumbles, turning back to the wrecked leg. “I should have listened to Coran.”

Fiery denial shudders through him, and Keith feels an anger against the Galra to match his own, to exceed it. An anger derived from capture, pain, and loss. And then he remembers that of the entire race of Alteans, only Allura and Coran remain, and neither a Paladin. Red’s pilot, like all those of the dead kingdom, had been lost, killed in the war with the Galra.

He laughs ruefully, shakes his head, tells Shiro what he had gotten from Red when Shiro asks, who only rolls his eyes, as if he expected no less.

“You should have listened,” Shiro whispers when Keith walks back to him, content that he and Red are ok, despite the damage from the fight. “But thank you for not listening, for keeping Zarkon away from Black.” He leans into Shiro, accepts the arm that wraps around his back, tightens on his shoulder.

“Black is yours, and you are his Paladin,” he says simply; that’s all there is to it, really. Shiro looks surprised, then smiles and nods. Halfway down the hallway, he looks down though, serious. “Let’s just not do that again.” Keith snorts. “Agreed.”

Shiro steers him towards the kitchen, doesn’t let him veer off when they hear voices softly emanating from down the hallways. “You need to actually eat something,” he says, pushing him through the door, and Keith restrains the urge to complain that Shiro sounds _just_ like his mother, who, upon meeting Keith, promptly insisted that he was too skinny and continued to make the point that he didn’t eat enough. Shiro had told him that it was what she did, a ‘mom thing,’ but the maternal chiding was unfamiliar, uncomfortable and hard to get used to.

Everyone’s in the kitchen, trying one of Hunk’s new creations. Allura and Coran look at him warily, Lance smirks and promptly opens his mouth, only to wince and shut it as both Hunk and Pidge elbow him in the gut. Pidge snickers when Lance complains about her ‘tiny sharp elbows.’

Coran speaks first, apologizing for not telling Keith about Zarkon, but admonishing that next time, he should put his impatience to the side and actually listen to those with more experience. Hunk has given him food, and a hurt look when he hadn’t immediately started eating, so his mouth is full and all he can do is nod. Coran seems mollified. Allura’s still watching him guardedly. He doesn’t blame her; it had been a low blow, what he had said when she started to bring her father into the argument.

“Try asking,” Shiro suggests mildly, earning a glare for his trouble, but Keith’s heart isn’t in it. So she does, admitting that he had been right, even if he had been superbly reckless, asking if he could forgive her, try to be less rash if there would be a next time; he can hear the warning of _there better not be a next time_. He thinks on it momentarily, then nods, realizes he already had, that his anger had burned itself out, not as quickly as it had risen, but quick all the same.

Coran and Allura were happy with his nods for answers, but Pidge obviously wasn’t. “You do know you can use actual words, right?” she asks, eyebrow raised, teasing. He snorts, shrugs as if to say _why bother?_ , earning a groan from the three Paladins across the table.

“I’ll translate,” Shiro promises, voice light and amused, drawing everyone’s laughter. Keith feels himself smiling despite himself, grins wider as he realizes it. Maybe, things would be better this time.

\---

_Crash and_

_Burn._

 

_Let the wildfire burn through,_

_Burn and burn and_

 

_Grow._

**Author's Note:**

> The gaff from the guidebook is the gaff that inspired Alan Doyle's "Laying Down to Perish"; it's a real thing, I promise. The Peter Pan bit was inspired by Ruth B's "Lost Boy," which is beautiful.


End file.
